Vita et Magia
by SennaNyx
Summary: Attending Hogwarts was never easy, but between parties, dating, and friends, it became better. This story follows everyone from Smosh during their sixth year at Hogwarts. (Pairings: Kalthony, Marhinki, Melian. Includes a few other YouTubers, but the story doesn't focus on them.)
1. Introduction

A/N: Hey guys! My HP/Smosh story is _finally _posted! I hope you're excited :D This story was originally going to be about Smosh and some other YouTubers at college, but I got bored of that idea and went with this instead, however I still kept some scenes I intended for the college fic. As a result, this fic will have a lot of drinking and parties xD which I thought the HP books really needed anyway, lol. This fic will be a lot more laid-back and funny than my other Smosh fic, Outlast, but it won't be without drama and some intensity later.

A note on ages: Everyone has been kinda "age squished" to be able to attend Hogwarts together. So in order for most of the main characters to be in the same year, they've been made a year younger/a little older lol. The oldest in the group of main characters is Anthony because his birthday comes earliest in the school year xD so I hope that makes some sense lol. Melanie is almost the same age as Ian and in the same year, but Kalel is a year younger to work with a plotline I had haha.

Okay I think that's it. I hope you guys will like this fic! I have so much planned for it :D

(the name in italics at the start of each chapter shows who is narrating, lol.)

* * *

-_Anthony_-

The music was loud and upbeat, and magic hummed in the air. Anthony was tall enough to see over the crowd of happy, dancing young witches and wizards, many of whom he recognized. Some were from his own House, others shared his classes. They waved at him upon catching his eye, and as he passed them he tried his best to respond in kind. It was still difficult for him, he realized sadly as he walked with his eyes averted to the ground in the hopes that no one else would try to talk to him. He still wasn't comfortable around this many people, and his shyness rendered him almost mute.

Anthony reached the bowl of some sort of alcohol he wasn't familiar with. He guessed it had to be firewhiskey, which was a very popular drink amongst older wizards and younger, though the younger should not have been drinking it at all. He wasn't even sure he wanted any; he was awkward enough without the help of alcohol, and he'd already had a mixed butterbeer. Not to mention it was the color of some of his failed potions, an odd, murky sort of orange. Anthony hesitated, taking a (rather tall) cup and reaching for the glass ladle. The tablecloth was adorned with the Gryffindor emblem, a regal golden lion roaring in front of a red and gold shield. Smiling to himself, he filled the cup with some of the drink. Toby, their host, had invited people from all four Houses, but still decorated the Room of Requirement with everything Gryffindor just to piss them off. Anthony took an absent sip, looking around at the many red and gold adornments, grinning when he noticed some ruffled Ravenclaws and a few sour-faced Hufflepuffs. He lowered the drink. It tasted all right, with a kick of cinnamon, but the alcohol was far too strong for him. He wrinkled his nose. He didn't need that much, thanks.

"Excuse me."

Anthony jerked his head up, realizing belatedly that he had been standing in front of the drinks for too long. "Sorry," he said automatically, moving aside for whoever had spoken; he had lost the voice in the din of the crowd. A girl pushed past him, wearing robes tinted with Ravenclaw blue. He caught a glimpse of a pretty, round face and caramel-colored hair.

She sent him a wry look that had him smiling. "I wouldn't have too many of these," she said as she served herself one. "It's stronger than normal firewhiskey."

He raised his eyebrows. "Really?" he said. He eyed the drink, raising it up to his eyes as though trying to find traces of poison.

She giggled; it was a pretty sound, and he had to stop himself from leaning closer. She had her drink in hand now, and she turned to face him; Anthony looked down into attractively rounded, dark blue eyes. Suddenly he was grinning a little lopsidedly, and it had nothing to do with the alcohol. "Don't tell anyone, but I heard someone enchanted it. You know, get people drunk faster. Better for the party and all that." She sipped at her cup without taking her eyes off of him. A shiny prefect's badge gleamed on the front of her robes.

His heart pounded nervously. She was really, really pretty, and part of him wanted to tell her that. Instead he said, "That sounds dangerous." He had to talk loudly over the music and chatter around them.

A little smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Mhm. But I guess it'll make the party funnier. Anyway, I'm –"

Someone shouted at her from across the room, and when she turned, a grin spread across her face. Anthony saw a group of girls from her House calling to her, beckoning her over. The Ravenclaw girl glanced back at him. "Sorry, I've gotta go – it was nice meeting you." And she joined her friends across the room.  
"Ah, bye," he said, his heart sinking. As he watched the crowd swallow up her petite figure, he realized he still hadn't gotten her name. For a moment he stood there, still loitering by the punch bowl, scowling at himself – he had lost her name in the noise of the party when her friends had called her. Damn. He had really liked her, too.

Anthony contemplated going after her, but he could only imagine that scenario going badly. Surely she would laugh at him for trying so hard to catch her name. Ravenclaws could be pretty petty at times, bordering on vain and uptight. Something about thinking their brains were the only things they had going for them; Mari had explained it to him once, but he hadn't really paid attention because he didn't care too much at the time.

He was just about to turn back and find his friend when someone stumbled into him. Realizing the newcomer was about to fall, Anthony grabbed his arm quickly, holding him upright. He scowled when he recognized his drunken dorm mate. "Joshua!" he said, frowning into his face. The other boy straightened his glasses.

"Were you talking to that girl, Anthony?" he said, grinning at him. His dark bangs were falling into his face.

Anthony chose not to respond to that. "How many drinks have you had?" he asked.

Joshua blinked, his eyes flicking toward the bowl. "Uh, not enough?" he said with what he hoped was a winning smile. He smoothed out his red-tinted Gryffindor robes.

He rolled his eyes. "Well, we're cutting you off. No more." As Joshua's grin fell into a hurt frown, Anthony continued, "Go find Mari, all right? Go see what she's doing." _And then you can bug her instead of me._

Joshua scowled, but nodded, and he stalked off into the crowd. Anthony shook his head, bemused. He wished his friend wouldn't drink so much at these parties – as funny as it was, he shared a dorm with him and would have to listen to the inevitable puking. And sometimes Vanishing Charms couldn't be cast quickly enough.

Anthony pushed through the crowd with his forgotten cup in hand, stopping only when he found who he was looking for. The living room had gained quite a few other people; a small crowd of students huddled around the couches now, laughing and playing a drinking game. His best friend and other dorm mate, Ian, sat on one of the other couches, watching them and twirling his wand between his fingers absently. Anthony was glad to see he had saved his spot.

Ian looked up as he sat beside him. "Here," Anthony muttered, handing him the drink. "I don't want this."

His friend's eyes flicked down at the drink, then up at him, and he pulled a face.

"I know. It's pretty good, though."

After a moment, Ian shrugged and took a sip.

"So what's going on?" Anthony asked him, nodding toward the crowd of students who were shouting, laughing, and drinking.

Ian lowered the cup. "Well, someone just drew a waterfall card." He sent him a wry look. "It was getting pretty intense."

Anthony blinked at the crowd of students. Some of them were turning rather red in the face trying to keep up with all of that alcohol intake. "You should join in," he dared his friend. _That _promised to be funny, and after the failure with that girl he had just endured, he could use the laugh. "Go on, I'll get you another drink if you need it."

He looked at him with scornful blue eyes, but said lightly, "I'm good." Anthony withheld a sigh and turned his attention back to the game at hand.

A group of fifth-year Hufflepuffs on the adjacent couch shyly engaged the two of them in conversation, and Anthony tore his eyes away from the drinking game to pay attention. He found he still couldn't really talk to them, his shyness binding his tongue, but Ian talked to them as easily as if they were his own friends. As the minutes wore on, though, Anthony noticed that his friend seemed to become more and more engaged in the conversation the more his cup emptied. He wasn't drinking it for the point of getting drunk, however; Anthony suspected he continued to sip at it simply for something to drink.

The Hufflepuffs eventually were called away and other students took their spots; students young enough to look as though they had their very first drink in hand, and they watched the drinking game going on with wide eyes. Everyone laughed at the unfortunate shenanigans that would befall the players, like truth or dare, or Never Have I Ever. Anthony was quite interested in one embarrassed-looking boy's answer to a mortifying question when a girl sat beside him; his heart leapt, hoping it was that Ravenclaw he had met earlier, but it was only Melanie, another Gryffindor sixth year he and Ian were close to.

"What's wrong?" she said, grinning mockingly into his face. Anthony saw she had her own cup too, and it was almost empty. "Were you hoping I was somebody else?"

He forced out a laugh. "Yes, actually. Sorry. What have you been up to?"

She grinned and tossed her wavy blond hair over her shoulder. "Well, Mari and I were hexing some Slytherins. We got that little snot who cursed Jovie the other day – his hair didn't look so nice with a bunch of slugs in it. And then I guess Mari remembered that there's alcohol at this party, and she went to get some, and I haven't seen her since. Have you guys?" Melanie looked around at both of them.

Anthony shook his head. "I haven't," he said, and looked pointedly at Ian.

But his friend was zoning out again, to the point in which Anthony wasn't sure he had heard anything she said. He kicked him under the table and Ian looked around quickly. "No, I haven't seen her either," he said, and finished his drink. Anthony grinned; Melanie rolled her eyes, but smiled too. "And you guys shouldn't be hexing anyone. What if someone caught you?"

"Then we'd have Confunded them," Melanie replied brightly. Ian said nothing. "Oh, plus, Ian, we got that guy you ran into the other day, landed a nice Tongue-Gluing hex and no one saw us. You know, that guy who called you a –"

"I know," Ian interrupted, stony-faced; Anthony couldn't read him at all. "I know what he called me. But I've told you I don't care, so you didn't have to do that."

Melanie pulled a face, and though Anthony shared the same sentiment, he kept his expression neutral. Both of them hated the way Ian so easily disregarded slights toward his blood status. It wasn't fair – Anthony was a pureblood, but he couldn't see a difference in the way his best friend did magic and he did. If anything, Ian was better at it, the only one in their group to land an Outstanding OWL in Charms.

"Mari! Hey!" Melanie said suddenly, jolting Anthony out of his thoughts.

And sure enough, there was Mari, grinning rather goofily with a sloshing cup in her hands. "There are my guys!" she said brightly to Ian and Anthony as she walked around the couch. Mari had her shiny black hair draped over one shoulder; she had always been happy, bright, and bossy, and she was the best flier they had ever seen. "What are you two doing sitting here when there's a party going on? Go talk to people!"

"They're talking to me," Melanie said with a laugh.

"Oh, you don't count," was Mari's airy response, giggling at her friend. "Look, Ian's even had a full cup of firewhiskey!"

"No I didn't," his friend said, before he frowned into his empty cup. "Oh. Oops."

Mari laughed. She took a drink and nudged Ian with her toe. "Actually, I was hoping you would walk me back to Gryffindor Tower. I'm freaking tired." Anthony didn't miss the way she had asked Ian to take her back, instead of him, but he didn't really care. He knew they were close; Ian and Mari had grown up in the same Muggle town.

"Sure," Ian said quickly. Anthony guessed he couldn't wait to leave, despite not having said a word to that effect at all that night. "I'm tired, too. When do you want to go?"

"When we find Joshua," Anthony said before Mari could respond, deciding on a whim to accompany them. He grimaced at her apologetically. "He was pretty drunk. I told him to find you."

Mari rolled her eyes. "Ugh, fine. We'll find him. Come on, Melanie."

"If he pukes on me, I'm hexing him too," Melanie grumbled, getting to her feet.

The two of them disappeared into the crowd.

Anthony glanced at Ian. "I suppose we should help," he said. It seemed that parties always seemed to end this way, with Joshua somehow missing but very drunk. He would have thought by now they would have learned to keep better track of him.

His friend sighed and stowed his wand in his school robes. "I suppose."

They abandoned the couch, and it was quickly taken over by other drunken students. Anthony glanced around the party. He didn't see any sign of Joshua through the crowd of drinking and dancing students, and someone had enchanted a radio to play throughout the room, making it difficult to hear anyone who wasn't right beside him. The door was just a few feet away, but if they stepped even right beyond it, they wouldn't be protected by the Silencing and Deluminating Charms that had been set. Anthony sighed. He glanced at Ian, who was beside him and eyeing the room without much expression.

Suddenly someone appeared between the two of them, wrapping an arm around both Ian and Anthony. "Hey guys!" Toby said loudly. He wore a huge, lopsided grin, and his wavy dark hair was askew. Anthony could smell the alcohol on him. "Thanks for coming to my party!"

"Yeah, it was fun, thanks for inviting us, uh..." Ian's voice trailed off.

"Toby," Anthony supplied quickly. He fought down a grin. Ian would have forgotten the name of their host even if he hadn't just had a tall glass of alcohol.

Toby shouted at someone a short distance away, then let out one of his hearty laughs, nearly deafening Anthony. He patted them both on the back. "I'll see you guys back at Gryffindor Tower. You didn't drink all my booze, did you?" he added with sudden, rather alarming seriousness.

Ian and Anthony stammered a _no_.

And Toby laughed at their worry. "Wow, I was kidding! All right, I'll see you guys later," he said, and still chortling, he slipped away.

Ian sent Anthony a long-suffering look. "Can we leave, please," he muttered.

"Yes!" cried Melanie, appearing at his side suddenly before Anthony could answer. "We've got Joshua. Let's go."

Anthony turned to see Mari dragging along a very drunk Joshua, who continued to look imploringly back at the booze table. "You're not having any more and if you ask again I'll hex you," she snapped at him. Anthony almost laughed at her words and Joshua's sad face.

He made sure once more that every member of the group he had arrived with was present before he opened the door. As soon as the five of them slipped into the dark, eerie hallway of the castle and closed the door, the noise and lights of the party were utterly silenced as the charms took hold. No passing teacher or caretaker would notice that a party was going on inside the Room of Requirement, but those returning to their common rooms after curfew ran the risk of being caught.

Anthony kept his wand out, just in case he would need to cast a distraction if they were discovered, and because Joshua was pretty drunk and unpredictable. He walked between him and Mari. Ian and Melanie were behind them, chatting quietly. He always hated being out in the castle at this time of night; he was a Gryffindor, so he was no coward, but sometimes he could have sworn that the suits of armor moved, and there was no telling when a ghost would drift through the walls and scare the hell out of them.

But he felt better with his friends around him. These were the people he had grown up with; for the past six or so years, they were the people who mattered most. They had helped each other through break-ups, tests, and the occasional Slytherin bully. Where Anthony had been uncomfortable and uneasy around all those people at the party, he was suddenly most at ease around these four.

"Some Muggleborn showed us this weird little music player," Joshua was muttering to them. He was walking a bit unsteadily. "It was white and had some sort of screen, and he said he enchanted it to play the music, but it didn't look like a radio to me."

"Really?" Anthony said blankly. He had never heard of something like that; he had thought a radio had been playing the music at the party.

"Sounds like an iPod," Ian piped up from behind them. Anthony, Melanie, and Joshua stared at him without comprehension. His gaze dropped. "Uh, never mind."

Mari rolled her eyes. "It's a music player. They just make them more compact now." When Joshua groaned, holding his head, Mari wordlessly conjured him a cup of water.

He took it, but promptly forgot about it when he stated his next thought. "That little thing can play music without any magic at all?" Joshua said, raising his eyebrows incredulously.

"Yep. It just needs power, and it works. I have one." She sighed. "You three really need to take Muggle Studies."

"Why?" Melanie said brightly. "We have you guys to explain things."

Mari scowled good-naturedly and looked away. She was a half-blood; her father was a wizard and her mother a Muggle. Joshua was a half-blood, too, but he had been raised entirely by his witch mother. And Anthony and Melanie had never been proud of being pureblood, even though they had repeatedly been told they should have been. Neither really understood the difference.

"Anthony was talking to a _girl,_" Joshua slurred suddenly, grinning at him.

He felt his face redden, and he tugged awkwardly at his collar as Mari whirled around to look at him. "Was he really?" she said teasingly.

Joshua smirked at her. "A Ravenclaw girl. I think she's a fifth-year."

"Aww," Mari said happily. "See! I told you guys to keep coming to these parties and you'll meet someone cool. So what was her name, Anthony? We might know her."

Anthony swallowed uncomfortably. "I, uh, I didn't catch her name."

She frowned. "Really? You met someone and you didn't get her name?"

He shook his head.

There was a moment of silence, and he was surprised when Ian broke it when he decided to start paying attention again. "You said she was a Ravenclaw fifth-year?" he said.

Anthony sent him a glance. "Yeah, I think a fifth-year," he replied cautiously. "Cuz she wore a prefect's badge."

Mari turned to him again, but her face was incredulous this time. "_Really? _She wore a prefect's badge to a party?" She sighed and shook her head. "She sounds like the irritating kind of Ravenclaw. Ian, we should know her, though, since she's a prefect." She frowned at her old friend. The two of them were the sixth-year Gryffindor prefects, but both had had the sense not to bring their badges to a party. "Who were the fifth-year Ravenclaw prefects?"

He frowned. Anthony knew at once he would not remember, but he surprised him when he said: "I don't remember the guy, but the girl's name was something weird, and it started with a _K._" But his expression cleared and he added, "But, Anthony, wait until Tuesday. We always have Charms with the Ravenclaws. You can talk to her then and get her name."

He stared at him. The simple logic had his heart swelling, and he turned away to hide his grin. Part of him was very, very grateful Ian had remembered, for once, something he had not. _All right. Tuesday, then. I'll talk to her Tuesday. _

They arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady. "Dittany," he said to the sleepy portrait.

She yawned and bade them entry.

It was far too late for anyone to still be awake, but a couple little first-years, unaccustomed to the homework load, had fallen asleep in the cozy armchairs in front of the fire with quills and parchments on their laps. Anthony couldn't wait to get to bed. He was suddenly eager to begin the school week, where he could read more of his Dark Arts books and finally get to talk properly to that Ravenclaw prefect he had met at the party. He stepped toward the boys' dormitories and looked back at the girls.

"Night," he called to them, and Ian and Joshua echoed him.

"Good night," Mari said. Melanie was already climbing the stairs, and Mari paused before beginning her ascent. "Are we all ready for that Transfiguration quiz on Tuesday?"

Anthony groaned; he had forgotten all about it. "It's just those appearance-changing spells, right?"

"Yep!" Mari said cheerfully; the boys scowled at her. Mari had always had an upper hand with her Transfiguration work, landing an OWL in the subject. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that she was an Animagus, something everyone in their group had to keep secret – she was unregistered. "I'll see you guys tomorrow!"

Anthony, Ian, and Joshua shuffled tiredly up the stairs to the sixth-year dorms. Anthony reached the door first and he opened it with his key.

"Do you mind if I practice for that quiz with you tomorrow?" he asked Ian as he held the door open for the other two.

His best friend pulled a face. "Uh...I guess. You're not gonna turn my eyebrows red again, are you?"

Joshua laughed as he reached his bed and began to clumsily pull off his shoes. One he pulled off with too much force and it flung across the room; he Summoned it back to his hand. "How many times did he do that, Ian?"

"Twice," Ian said, grinning, as he hung up his black school robes. He pointed his wand at the candle beside his bed and the flame appeared, illuminating his side of the room.

Anthony sighed. "Well, Mari fixed it in the end, didn't she?" he grumbled. He flung his robes under his bed and pulled off the gray sweater vest, loosening his red and gold tie all the while. He wished he hadn't worn the tie; it may have been part of his uniform, but he hated wearing it. "It wasn't that big a deal. And Joshua, didn't you accidentally give yourself a walrus mustache?"

Joshua chose to ignore this. Ian shook his head, still grinning as he got into bed. There were pictures of some sort of machine above his bed his friend had once explained to him was called a _car, _although Anthony could not imagine how the hell they were used for transportation. They didn't look very safe at all, and very clunky, unlike broomsticks.

"I don't feel good," Joshua said suddenly; he bolted from the room, his Gryffindor tie hanging loosely around his neck. A moment later they heard the sound of retching.

Ian and Anthony glanced at one another.

"I'm glad I got this side of the room," Ian muttered, and turned over. "Don't get puked on."

Anthony threw one of his textbooks at him; Ian retaliated by slicing off one of the legs of Anthony's bed with a neat Severing Charm. Laughing as he nearly toppled off his own bed, Anthony fixed the broken leg, said good-night to Ian, and tried to fall asleep, but something kept him awake. It perhaps had something to do with that Ravenclaw girl he had met earlier with the rounded, dark blue eyes and pretty caramel hair. Even with the anxiety accompanied with the thought of talking to her, he realized he was looking forward to seeing her again. With that thought in mind, Anthony drifted off, only hearing Joshua return once before he had to race from the room again.

* * *

A/N: Dammit, you can already sort of tell that Ian's my favorite xD This is supposed to be more about everyone, but I guess I can't help it lol.

Next time: Lots of backstory on Ian, and a little Mari, and some of the plotlines begin moving.

I really hope you guys liked this intro chapter! Please tell me what you think :)


	2. Magic and Muggleborns

A/N: A lot of detail/character development/backstory on Ian here, and a little insight into what it's like to be a Muggleborn.

* * *

-_Ian_-

The atmosphere in the classroom was unbearable. Ian waited nervously in his desk beside Anthony, who was twitching and anxiously observing his classmates. Glancing about the Defense Against the Dark Arts class they shared with the Hufflepuffs, he could see that pretty much everyone else was pretty uneasy too. Ian couldn't blame them. The assignment they had been given was an odd one, and indeed, one that might shape their future.

The sixth years were being called, one at a time, to view the Mirror of Erised, see exactly what it held for them, and then write an essay about it. Essays would be confidential and memory wiping was optional for those who couldn't get their heart's desires out of their heads, but Ian wasn't sure he wanted to know what the mirror would show him. He had no idea what it could hold, and tried to brainstorm ideas to distract himself – maybe himself becoming an Animagus, like Mari. That would be cool. Or owning that new sports car that just came out. He allowed himself to daydream about it until someone with a last name starting with a _G _was called and he nervously paid attention again, given that he would be next and the first of his friends to see the Mirror.

He glanced at Melanie. She had her wand behind her ear and was doodling on some parchment with an enchanted artist's quill. She had painted a lion, putting careful accents and detail into the yellow, piercing eyes. Ian smiled faintly, then looked to Mari, who was a seat ahead of her; his oldest friend tapped her wand anxiously against her desk, staring at nothing. Occasionally red sparks would shoot from it but she paid no attention.

"Mr. Hecox," their professor called.

Ian swallowed nervously and stood. He exchanged a glance with Anthony, who gave him a grin that was more like a grimace. He walked to the front of the class and the teacher led him to the adjacent classroom.

The professor, a middle-aged witch with a pointed hat and a hawk-like nose, instructed him briskly as she opened the door. "I encourage you not to panic if you see something you weren't expecting; and do bear in mind that these are the _current _desires of the heart. While you are only about two years away from graduation, you haven't quite had enough life experiences to know exactly what you want, so what is shown here may be subject to change. It all depends on you."

Ian nodded quickly, trying to keep up with what she was saying. "I understand, Professor," he said politely.

He walked into the room. The Mirror of Erised was easily the most striking feature; its marble, engraved frame reflecting serenely in the dim light, and it took up nearly the entire classroom; the desks had been pushed aside to accommodate space for it. Ian could not see his reflection yet, nor what it was supposed to show to him, and he looked nervously at the instructor. She nodded her encouragement, and Ian stepped in front of the mirror.

At first, he wasn't sure what he was seeing. Ian blinked at his reflection, and the older man in the mirror grinned back at him. His reflection showed himself, a few years older, with his smiling parents behind him and his happy sister at his side. He was wearing Muggle clothes smudged with grease, suggesting he was a mechanic. He stared at his reflection, wondering why it was making him upset, until it hit him. It was a very normal scene; a very _Muggle _scene.

"Oh," Ian mumbled softly. There was a sinking feeling in his heart. So that was what the Mirror was trying to tell him. He had thought he had let go of the desperate, impossible wish that he was not magic when he was younger and became friends with Anthony and Melanie. Still, even though it upset him, he understood why the Mirror had chosen to show him this.

Ian's magic had manifested when he was about four or five years old. His parents could not explain the strange occurrences surrounding some of his accidental magic; he couldn't control it, he didn't even know what he was doing was magic. His parents became convinced he was a thief, as some of their possessions would sometimes disappear, and that he was just a troublemaker – occasionally things around the house would change color as though he had dyed it. He broke the living room windows twice without realizing it, but his family was convinced he had thrown a baseball into them. His magic put a barrier between Ian and his family, and after every accident, every unintentional bit of magic he did, it put him further and further apart from them.

When he became older, his magic grew stronger, and the accidents became dangerous. He was sent to the principal's office twice for fights he hadn't meant to start, and his parents were very quickly running out of excuses for him. After a particularly bad one-sided argument at the dinner table during which Ian could not explain why a couple kids in his class had gotten injured when they were hanging out with him, and his father vehemently demanding why he had attacked his classmates, Ian walked outside and wandered to the lake. His parents no longer cared if he was out late, and the sun was setting over the horizon.

Nine years old, lonely, and upset, he wandered out to the dock and sat beside the water. Placing his palm over the surface of the water, he watched with a sort of horrified fascination as the water spun into a tiny whirlpool below his hand.

"I can do that too!"

Ian very nearly fell into the water in shock. He whirled around. A Japanese girl about his age was trotting toward him, her face alight. He stared at her as she sat beside him, placing her palm above the water; Ian gave a start when the water whirled below her hand too.

At this point, Ian was beginning to think there was something very wrong with both of them. He looked up at her excited face in utter confusion.

"You're magic, just like me!" she said. She wore weird clothes, he noticed; some sort of dark robes covered her tiny form.

"Magic?" he repeated blankly.

"Mm-hmm. Magic." She tilted her head. "Are you Muggleborn?" she asked him. He didn't answer, having never heard the word before. "You must be, I think. Come on, I'll introduce you to my parents. They can explain stuff. Oh, I'm Mari."

"...Ian," he said nervously, and let her pull him to his feet.

Mari's parents were very nice people, but Ian thought their house was a bit odd. They had a television and a phone, but the lights didn't appear to be hooked up and somehow still operated, and they had a strange clock which, instead of numbers, showed locations, and one indicated "mortal peril," though none of the hands were pointed toward it. He also could have sworn he saw an owl swoop in through the kitchen window. They didn't have a dishwasher, but the more he stared at the sink, Ian realized that the dishes appeared to be washing themselves.

Mr. Takahashi introduced himself, explained that both of them had magic, and told him what that meant. Ian listened in silence, without interrupting once. He didn't know what to think. What he had been told made a great deal of sense; suddenly he had something else on which to blame all the misfortune and accidents instead of himself.

"You're the first magic kid I've come across!" Mari said happily. She had been listening from the couch, huddled cross-legged and watching him.

"Mari's been hoping to meet someone else like her," her father added, grinning at his daughter.

Ian smiled weakly. He felt numb, frightened, and very unsure of himself; he had no idea what to do with himself now that he knew what he really was. It was suddenly too much.

Everyone in the room jumped when a vase on the mantle exploded suddenly; as the flowers it had held scattered across the floor, Ian shrank back in shame, knowing he had been at fault. "I'm sorry," he said quickly.

And Mari's father drew his wand, pointed it at the shattered vase, and said softly, "_Reparo._"

The vase mended itself.

"No harm done," Mr. Takahashi continued, stowing his wand inside his dark robes.

But Ian shook his head. "No. That's not what my principal told me. I'm the reason those kids ended up in the nurse's office. They told me I would get kicked out of school if there were any more incidents, but I can't help it. It's dangerous, and I'm to blame, aren't I?" A silence greeted his words. He saw Mari glance uneasily at her father, her face blank for the first time since he had met her. Ian swallowed hard. "Can you teach me to control it?" he asked the wizard.

He saw something like sympathy in the man's face, and he hated it. "Of course," he said.

Ian nodded and mumbled his thanks. He wondered if Mari's magic was as out of control as his, and if not, perhaps that meant there was something wrong with him. Ian meant to ask him about it, but promptly forgot when the wizard explained the ways of magic further.

Mr. Takahashi continued by saying that he would be getting his Hogwarts letter just before his eleventh birthday, and at Hogwarts he would learn to how to use his magic properly. Mari added to the conversation, quite enthusiastically, the adventures her father had during his years at Hogwarts, and she explained about lessons, Houses, and something called Quidditch. Ian tried to pay attention, but his mind was spinning with all he had learned; he was suddenly very divided from his family and the world he had known for all of his short life, and it was very, very scary.

Luckily for him, Mari turned out to be a valuable friend; his first real friend, actually, in a long time. She was very patient with him, realizing quickly that he knew absolutely nothing about the wizarding world, and taught him what she knew. She also figured out what his family thought of him – after her father had a talk with Ian's parents and they learned what he was, things didn't get better for him, as he had hoped. They thought they had created something inhuman, a freak of nature. So Mari took it upon herself to get him out of the house as much as she could before they began at Hogwarts. She talked back to his parents, which he had never dared to do, insisting that she was his new best friend and that he needed someone to play with. They did everything together; practicing magic, reading, doing schoolwork – Mari shared her video games with him and they had Pokemon battles. Ian often worried he was taking up too much of her time, but Mari always seemed genuinely happy to spend her day with him. She became more of a sister to him than his real sister. And when they began Hogwarts together and met Anthony and Melanie, their relationship became even stronger, and they helped each other through whatever life threw at them.

His parents no longer cared what he did with his time; they were quite glad when he went off to Hogwarts every fall, but the few conversations he had with them were short and often angry. One Christmas break during his second year, his father had vehemently declared that Ian was not allowed to sit inside with the family, given that he was a wizard. He spent his Christmas outside in the cold, too embarrassed to find Mari. Ian had begun staying at Hogwarts during every Christmas after that. There was a summer in which his parents said about two words to him, otherwise they ignored him entirely, and Mari spent her time trying to keep him out of the house and cheerful.

All in all, given his history, it wasn't very surprising that the Mirror had chosen to show him this. His own magic had driven his family away from him, and sometimes he hated that he had somehow been born with magic when no one else in his family was a wizard. Although, if he wasn't magic, he never would have met Anthony, Melanie, or Mari. It was a strange dilemma, and not one he voiced often; only Mari really knew what his home life was like. Anthony had a vague idea, but Melanie had none. He wanted to keep it that way.

Ian stepped away from the Mirror, allowing the professor to lead him back to class. He didn't want to see any more.

* * *

"The stupid thing showed me a few years older, as an Auror," Anthony told them later as they walked off to lunch. "I didn't even know I wanted to be an Auror. I guess that means I have no idea what I really want? I don't know." He shook his head ruefully.

Ian watched the stone floor, only half listening. He very much hoped that his friends wouldn't ask him what he had seen in the Mirror; they were happy, joking about the assignment, and not only did he not want to reveal what his family thought of him, he didn't want to extinguish his friends' cheer.

"Well, I saw myself painting," Melanie declared happily. Ian forced himself to pay attention, and he focused on her words. "It was awesome. I had all these pictures around me and I was selling them."

"That's cool," said Anthony, and he looked to Mari.

But Ian's oldest friend was watching him, he could tell out of the corner of his eye, and he knew she had some idea of what was on his mind. "Are we going to Hogsmeade this weekend?" she asked them, completely changing the subject.

Anthony frowned at the ceiling, his hands in his pockets. "Uh, I suppose. I need a new quill. You snapped my last one, Mari."

"Hey, I didn't mean to!"

They bickered all the way to the Great Hall, and by then Ian's thoughts were very much elsewhere. He didn't start paying attention again until they were seated properly around the Gryffindor table, preparing to eat their lunch. The noise of hundreds of students echoed in the vast hall around them. Ian looked down at the plates full of food, but found he wasn't really hungry. His reflection in the Mirror still nagged him at the back of his mind.

Melanie tugged on the sleeve of his school robes, and he turned automatically toward her bright, happy face. She had her wand behind her ear as usual, the end of it lost in her mess of wavy blond hair. "We should go to Hogsmeade, too," she said cheerfully. "You can tell me more about the Muggle world. You know, cars and phones and uptrains."

Ian stared at her blankly, sifting the word around in his head and finding himself tracking her train of thought, until he said at length, "...Airplanes."

"Yeah, those!" She giggled a little at herself, then continued, "You told me they're like a train with wings, right? But...wings like a bird?"

"No," he said, and he couldn't help smiling at this point. "They have, uh, metal wings." He hoped he wouldn't have to explain to a pureblood how an airplane flew. Ian knew she wouldn't understand so much detail about the Muggle world.

She frowned and tipped her head. "Metal wings? That doesn't seem very aerodynamic. Are you sure Muggles don't secretly use some magic to hold the airplanes in the air?"

He shook his head. "Some engineers figured it out. No magic was involved. Uh, that I know of."

As her mouth scrunched up to the side in confusion, he was saved from explaining airplanes further when Mari exclaimed, "Oh, yeah! Anthony! How did your talk with that girl go?"

Ian looked at his friend; he had completely forgotten about that. And it was Tuesday, after all.

Anthony didn't smile. He looked down at his lunch without meeting their eyes. "It was all right. I just couldn't talk to her well, though."

"Lack of alcohol?" Melanie said with a knowing grin; Ian grinned too.

Anthony scowled at her.

Mari giggled. "All right guys, all we have to do is slip Anthony something before every Charms class, and he'll have a girlfriend in no time."

It was only out of respect for their friendship that Ian didn't laugh, though Melanie and Mari did. Anthony let out a sigh, though a smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I hate you guys."

"I doubt it," Mari said cheerfully. "Anyway, what's her name?"

Anthony hesitated for a moment before he said, "Kalel."

There was a pause as they considered the name. Ian should have known her; they were prefects together, after all, but he often forgot names as soon as he was told them.

Mari shrugged. "That's an odd name. She was really pretty, though. Are you gonna ask her to go to Hogsmeade this weekend? The three of us can go together and we won't bother you." She gestured at herself, Ian, and Melanie. Joshua joined them at the table, wordlessly sitting beside Mari; one of his ears had been accidentally Transfigured into a small cactus. Ian frowned at him, wondering if he should cast the counterspell, but Anthony began speaking again and the thought was forgotten.

His best friend dropped his gaze and poked moodily at his lunch. "I don't know." Mari exchanged a glance with Ian, but didn't comment. After a moment, Anthony looked back up at Mari. "Hey, weren't you trying out for Chaser this year?"

At this, Mari drew herself up proudly, smoothing out her black school robes. "Yes! Ian helped me practice yesterday. I think I did pretty well." She looked at Ian for confirmation.

He grinned. "She did. She made more goals than she missed."

Joshua gave a start. "Wait, Ian was really flying? Like, on a broomstick?"

Ian grimaced. "Well, okay – Mari flew. I just enchanted the Quaffle to fly at her and act like there were other Chasers throwing it around." Everyone at the table knew he was a terrible flier. They may have spent much of their childhood zooming around on broomsticks in Mari's backyard, but not even that had helped him much. Enchanting the Quaffle was the best he could do to help Mari practice.

Anthony smirked as two owls swooped down to their table. He removed a letter from his family's hawk owl and opened it absently, having apparently forgotten about Kalel. "You haven't ridden a broomstick since flying lessons in our first year."

He grinned at that; it was perfectly true. "Yep. And I probably won't anytime soon." Mari looked scandalized at this news. Ian watched Melanie unwrap the sweets her parents had sent her from home; she took a huge bite of a pumpkin pasty and offered him one from the box. Ian ate it quietly as her family's gray owl took flight, and he watched it soar from the Great Hall.

"Me too, Mel." Mari plucked one for herself as she unwrapped the Daily Prophet. She munched on the pumpkin pasty absently, turning a huge page.

Anthony was suddenly still and silent beside him. Ian frowned at his friend's face, sensing that the letter in his hands had told him something he hadn't wanted to hear. "What's the matter?" Ian asked him quietly, hoping that the girls wouldn't hear, but Mari and Melanie turned toward them anyway. Joshua was absorbed in his sandwich and effectively zoning out.

His friend crumpled the letter, looking uneasy and agitated, and he poked at his lunch again and didn't answer for a moment. Just when Ian was about to ask him again, Anthony said, "My parents just wanted to remind me I'm only supposed to date a pureblood."

Mari rolled her eyes and went back to the Prophet; Melanie looked a bit downcast as well, and Ian stared at his own lunch, suddenly melancholy. He could remember very well what had happened when Anthony's parents found out he was dating a half-blood girl in during their fifth year; they pestered her with owls, putting down her blood status and demanding proof of her bloodline from the Ministry. She finally broke up with him, tired of the pressure and stress, and he never saw her again. Anthony had scarcely cracked a smile for a long time. As an uncomfortable silence settled around his group, Ian realized that no one had asked the obvious question. Ian was his best friend; the responsibility fell to him. He sent Anthony a sideways glance and asked quietly, "Is Kalel a pureblood?" He didn't want to ask if Anthony's parents had also instructed him not to hang around Muggleborns. He had a feeling he knew the answer.

Anthony's shoulders slumped. "I don't know."

Before Ian had time to consider the problem, Mari sighed suddenly. "Oh, dear."

"What?" Anthony said quickly; she was still looking at the Prophet, absorbed in the news of the day.

When her dark eyes flicked over to Ian, he had a feeling he knew what had happened. "Just...more attacks on Muggleborns. Some pureblood supremacists and stuff."

Ian said nothing; he didn't know what to think. He had heard of these attackers who targeted Muggleborns, believing them to have stolen their magic from true witches and wizards. It upset him every time he heard about an attack, but they seemed to be becoming more and more common, to the point Ian was beginning to wonder if he had to be careful when in the wizarding world. Perhaps Melanie sensed his unease, because she patted his arm and said, "Hey, don't worry about it. You're safe in Hogwarts. Those pureblood asshats can't get you here."

He tried to smile. He wondered if he should remind her that she was a pureblood as well – and what that might mean for their relationship. "I suppose," he said with a sigh. Mari was trying to catch his eye, but he ignored her; she worried about him too much. Anthony was in the midst of rereading the letter from his parents, much to his displeasure. His friend's face became more and more sour the longer he read on.

Melanie scoffed, reaching for the plate of self-refilling chicken and ham sandwiches, and by the time she had loaded a couple onto her plate she was smiling again. She plopped one of them in front of him and gestured for him to eat. "_I _don't suppose, I know I'm right. Now tell me more about uptrains."

* * *

A/N: I'm sure that Ian's parents and sister are all very nice people lol and probably wouldn't treat him like that even if he really was a wizard xD But I put it in there for the sake of character development. Sorry, Ian.

Just so y'all know, the Mari/Ian strong friendship will be pretty prominent throughout the story. They're pretty much like brother and sister :D quite a change to what they were in Outlast lol.

Next time: Sohinki is introduced as the Marhinki plotline begins moving...


	3. A Potions Partner

A/N: A wild Sohinki appears! :D

I've had a few questions asked: Where the hell is Lasercorn? So David is there in Hogwarts, but I couldn't figure out a way to include him in the main story xD You will see him eventually, maybe at one of Toby's parties or something, but five main characters is hard enough for me. Another reason is that he is a seventh year and doesn't hang out with Ian and Anthony's group a lot. But he is there (and a Gryffindor). He'll show up eventually lol :D

When the hell does this story take place? So this takes place when Ian and Anthony are teenagers, so early 2000s I guess. Some people were wondering why there were still problems with Muggleborns haters around this time when Voldemort has already been taken care of. I decided to include this and just say that there are still people who feel that Muggleborns should not attend Hogwarts for more conflict lol. So even with Voldemort taken care of, there are still asshat purebloods who hate Muggleborns.

Oh I don't know how Rhett ended up as the Gryffindor Quidditch captain lol. Also another YouTuber shows up, I'm sure you'll recognize him xD

Okay, enjoy :D

* * *

_-Mari-_

The weather was excellent. Mari ambled happily down to the Quidditch pitch with her Nimbus 2001 over her shoulder. Today was the day. Ian, Anthony, and Melanie had helped her prepare, and she had practiced for this almost every day after classes, so there _was no way _she would not end up a Chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

She had always liked looking at the Hogwarts grounds. Mari had once flown her broomstick over the vast fields of cleanly cut grass, much to the dismay of the groundskeeper, but she couldn't help it. She had loved the way the wind blew her hair back and how she could get so close to the grass she could run her hand over the soft blades. Ian had once told her she was an insane flier, and she couldn't work out if he meant she was great at flying or if she took too many chances on a broomstick. Either way, the comment had made her happy, and it was perfectly true.

Mari whistled to herself as she reached the Quidditch pitch and walked through the tunnel, where she found the Gryffindor team hopefuls crowded around the captain. She took a breath, assured herself that everything would be fine, and joined them. The team captain was a very tall seventh year boy with upswept blond hair. He was named Rhett McLaughlin and he played Keeper. Mari stared up at him. _He's even taller than Anthony or Jovie, _she thought, ogling him freely. He was quite handsome, too, but Mari reminded herself she was taking a break from dating for a while.

"Chasers first," Rhett was saying. He had a smooth, pleasant voice. "And if you're not from Gryffindor," he continued, raising his voice and sounding annoyed, "please leave now. I don't want to deal with any random Ravenclaws or Hufflepuffs who aren't supposed to be here."

There was a pause, and Mari glanced around the group. She raised her eyebrows when she noticed a couple younger students with yellow-tinted robes; they jaunted off the pitch, laughing at their own joke. Rhett rolled his eyes.

A few students broke away from the group, nervously chatting with each other and showing off their broomsticks. Mari got in line with the other Chasers, and she blinked at the sight of the boy beside her. "Felix!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

The Swedish fifth-year frowned. He was blond, rather tall, and for some reason he and Ian couldn't stand each other. "I'm gonna be your other Chaser," he replied. She eyed his broomstick with some envy; it was a Starsweeper XXI, which she knew, from the _Quidditch Through the Ages _book Ian had given Mari for her sixteenth birthday last year, was a broom commonly used in the World Cup.

"Uh huh," Mari said. She had never seen him fly. She might never have tried out for the team before either, but she knew she would make it, and Felix looked too scrawny and clumsy to be any good.

Felix's name was called next. "Hey, I will! You'll see!" he promised her, and took flight.

Mari shielded her eyes from the sun as she watched him. She had to admit he flew pretty well, and he maintained control of the Quaffle with ease and scored all five goals, all while avoiding the Bludgers. Rhett nodded once when Felix returned to the ground, informing him that he would give him his decision the following day. Mari grinned at him. "All right, you did pretty good," she admitted.

"Ha! Told you," the Swedish boy said proudly.

Rhett called her name next. Suddenly feeling as though her heart was going to burst through her chest, she prepared to fly. "Okay, Takahashi, let's see what you've got," their captain said.

Mari's only regret was that neither Ian nor Anthony could make it to her tryouts. Both of her guys had an Arithmancy lesson to attend, a class Mari would not have taken even if someone had paid her. Even when she dodged the Bludgers, passed the Quaffle easily between the other fliers, and scored all five goals, she privately felt that she would have flown better had they been there to watch her. But the elation of flying could not keep that regret around for long; she performed a celebratory loop-de-loop before returning to the ground to hear Rhett's verdict. He told her, too, that he would inform her of his decision tomorrow. "Okay, thanks!" Mari said brightly, and she walked away from the group, her broomstick over her shoulder and whistling to herself once more. She would see her guys as soon as she returned to the castle for a Potions lesson.

She scanned the stands, just to make sure her friends were not there, and her heart sank when she saw none of them, just as she expected. Oh well. It wasn't as if it was an actual game – she would _kill _them for missing that. But she did see someone in the stands who had her heart skipping several beats, someone with longish brown hair and yellow-tinted Hufflepuff robes, and Mari very nearly stopped walking.

"Hey, Mari," Wes said, leaning over the edge of the stands to talk to her. He, too, was very handsome, but she couldn't bring herself to appreciate it much anymore. He was smiling rather sadly. "You flew really well."

Part of her wanted to ignore him entirely, turn her nose up in the air, and saunter off the pitch without a word. But that would be childish, and she was almost of age now. She had to act more like Ian; her oldest friend didn't care when someone slighted him, no matter the offense. She swallowed, wishing he was beside her. "Thanks, Wes," she said quietly, and her throat tightened. No matter how much she wanted to handle the situation with maturity, Mari could not remain there any longer. She hurried away from the pitch, and when she was sure he couldn't see her, she mounted her broomstick and took flight toward the castle.

* * *

"I _hate _Potions," Mari mumbled absently, watching Anthony cut up the root of some plant whose name she couldn't remember.

He grinned at her words and dropped some of the chopped root into their cauldron. The potion bubbled and hissed, and turned a lime green. "It's not so bad," he said, and began to stir. "What does the book say about stirring it?"

Mari glanced down at her _Advanced Potion-Making _textbook. Her eyes scanned over the instructions for a Blood-Replenishment Potion. "Six stirs clockwise, two counter clockwise, and repeat." She rolled her eyes. "See, this is why I hate this class. It's so damned specific. What happens if we do _three_ stirs counter clockwise? Will it explode?"

Anthony let out a small laugh. "Probably not, but it will ruin our grade," he said.

She sighed. "I guess." Mari looked around the classroom. The bored professor sat at his desk, grading papers and allowing the class to work on their own. She could see Ian working with Melanie a few cauldrons down. Mari grinned to herself, watching the two of them talk and laugh. No one was really sure what their relationship was, not even Mari or Anthony, but she had a feeling something might progress between them soon. She thought they were really cute together, anyway. She turned back to Anthony. "Are we almost done?"

"Not quite. Did you get the iguana eyes?" Without waiting for an answer, he plucked the eyes from the jar she had brought over and dumped them in the potion as she wrinkled her nose in disgust. Their potion turned bright yellow. Anthony frowned down at the cauldron. "It's supposed to be that color, right?"

"Uh..." Mari quickly skimmed the textbook again. "Oh. Yep. _After adding iguana eyes, potion should turn yellow._ Sweet, we're good." She glanced at him, watching him stir, and felt a pang of guilt. "Uh, do you want me to stir at all? I think I can manage that." She shivered; it was way too cold down in the dungeons, and it had no windows. She couldn't see the sky or the grounds from there.

It was very true that she couldn't stand touching or chopping up any of the ingredients; Potions was easily her worst subject. Mari was so terrible at it she often partnered herself with Ian or Anthony so they could help her through the process. Anthony smiled faintly. "It's all right, Mari. What do we need to add next?"

She swallowed a sigh and turned to her book once more. "Um...thestral hair. Oh, gross. Is that it?" She pointed at the cluster of frayed dark hairs in the ingredients holder on Anthony's desk.

"Yep. Want some?" And he seized them and pretended to dump them on her head as she gasped in shock and drew away, giggling.

The professor shouted at them for their inattention, and they resigned themselves to a few minutes of working in silence. Mari watched Anthony stir, and his eyes drifted out of focus, his mind clearly elsewhere. Perhaps he was thinking about that Ravenclaw girl, Kalel...and the thought reminded her of something she ought to inform him. She spoke suddenly, unable to stand the quiet any longer. "Oh, by the way, Anthony," she said, and she leaned forward and dropped her voice, aware that this news could be a bit embarrassing for him, but she could not keep the grin out of her tone. She had wanted to tell him this _forever. _"You might want to be a little careful about what you drink."

He sent her a startled glance. "Uh, why?"

"Because girls are very much aware that you don't have a date to the end of semester dance and are trying to slip you Love Potions so you'll ask them." She very nearly snorted with laughter at the look on his face. It had been worth it to wait, just as she had thought.

"What?" he hissed. He ran a hand through his hair. "God...how do you know that?"

She smirked. "Oh, we found out somehow. Ian and I have been confiscating them for you, since we're prefects and all." It had been Ian who had overheard the girls plotting about how to best slip Anthony the infamous potion; and since then, he and Mari had been trying their best to collect what they could so their friend would never drink it.

Anthony blinked. "Really? He never mentioned anything." He glanced at back at Ian, who was still chatting with Melanie and didn't appear to have the faintest idea they were talking about him. Anthony turned to her, frowning and uneasy. "Why would they do that, anyway? Those girls?"

Mari rolled her eyes. "Come _on._ You're really good-looking, you've finally cut your hair, and you've grown like a foot over the summer. That helps a lot." As a redness crept its way across his cheeks, Mari added, "And before things get weird, you're a nice looking boy, Anthony, but you're not my type."

"Uh...thanks, I guess." He ran a hand through his hair again, and rubbed his eyes. "God, what a pain. I'm going to have to be _really _careful from now on."

She grinned. "Well...maybe you'll have a date soon after all. How are things going with Kalel?"

An embarrassed sort of smile tugged at his mouth, and her grin grew. "All right," he said carefully, smiling down at the potion as he stirred. "It's gotten easier to talk to her."

"Aw, Anthony! That's great!" Mari fondly patted the arm that wasn't occupied with stirring. "I knew you could do it."

He let out a short laugh. "Thanks."

Their potion was done a few minutes later, and as class ended and they packed up to leave, their professor called her name and Mari's head snapped up. "Miss Takahashi, a word," he said.

Mari exchanged a worried glance with Ian and Anthony as her friends left without her. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she approached the professor's desk, stepping across the almost empty classroom.

Their Potions professor glanced up. He was a young teacher, only recently hired, but he was far better than old Professor Karmore, who had finally retired two years ago. And he didn't mix up Mari and Melanie simply because their names both started with an _M. _He had a thin face and a curved nose, and his hair was already receding. "Miss Takahashi," Professor Finnigan said, "I have watched you brew potions for almost two years now, and I'm sorry to say that your performance has not improved much."

She stared at him, frowning. Oh, no. This couldn't ruin her day – not when she'd gotten a chance to fly earlier. "It...it hasn't?" she said in a high-pitched voice. "But...I got an Acceptable OWL, sir. I was qualified to take this class."

"Indeed you were, but there is a reason an A is the bare minimum. You can't let Mr. Padilla brew your potions for you forever." He sent her a wry glance, and she looked at the stone dungeon floor, flushing slightly. "I'm afraid if you don't improve soon, there is no chance you will pass your NEWT Potions exam."

There was no doubt about it, Mari knew her day was ruined. She needed that grade – her ambition was to become a great Quidditch player, but there was always a chance it would not work out, so she had planned for an Auror as a backup. And Aurors needed to know how to brew potions. She blinked away the liquid that had formed in her eyes and said quickly, "What can I do, sir?"

Professor Finnigan sighed, shuffling his essays. "You will take remedial Potions with a partner. _Not _Mr. Padilla or Mr. Hecox," he added when she opened her mouth. "I don't want them doing your work for you, and I can't trust them not to. No, someone you don't know well may do you good." She frowned at this and fought the urge to groan, imagining some snooty seventh-year who would try to boss her around. _That _would change very quickly if he tried. Professor Finnigan glanced around her, eyeing the students in the class. "Mr. Sohinki," he said, and Mari gave a start, "come here, please."

Mari turned quickly. A sixth-year boy around her age came forward. He had dark, sandy hair, he was barely taller than her, and his school robes were tinted with green. He smiled at her as he approached.

"Miss Takahashi," he said, "this is Matt Sohinki. He's going to help you with your remedial coursework in exchange for Slytherin House points."

The boy held out a hand. "It's nice to meet you," he said politely.

She didn't shake it. Mari turned back toward her teacher, and she couldn't keep the scorn out of her voice. "He's a _Slytherin!_" she blurted out. Sohinki dropped his hand.

Professor Finnigan raised his eyebrows coldly. "Indeed. But I'm sure you can put aside your Gryffindor prejudice and work something out. And that was quite rude, Miss Takahashi. Please apologize to Mr. Sohinki."

She took a breath. "Sorry," Mari muttered, her eyes on the stone floor once again. She forced herself to look at him. Ian wouldn't care if _he _had been forced to work with a Slytherin; he'd do it anyway, even if they had called him a Muggleborn slur at some point. Sohinki had done nothing to her and still she had reacted like that. Guilt clenched at her insides, but she couldn't say anything more.

"It's all right," Sohinki said, if a little stiffly.

"Very good." Professor Finnigan gathered up his papers and stood. "I will hand you the remedial work next class." And he walked briskly from the room.

Mari made a move to follow him, not wanting to stay with the Slytherin boy any longer, but he spoke before she could leave. "So," he said. He held out a hand. "Let's try again. I'm Matt."

She swallowed a sigh. "Mari," she said, and shook it this time. "And I sorta know who you are. We're in the same year." Before he could respond to this, she went on, "And you'd better not boss me around or anything. I might be terrible at Potions, but I got my O in Transfiguration. I can turn you into a bug if you make me mad."

To her annoyance, Sohinki did not look intimidated. He wore a small smirk. "I don't doubt it," he said smoothly. "And I'd expect no less from a Gryffindor, acting rashly without a lot of cause."

The quip had her spluttering. "Hey, that's not –"

"_That_ was for insulting my House," Sohinki continued, his arms folded. "Not all Slytherins are assholes, thanks. And I've helped people through remedial Potions before, so we'll probably start with a Draught of Living Death, and for that we need to cut up Sequoia branches. You can cast a Severing Charm, right?"

"Of course," Mari very nearly growled. "Looking forward to it."

Sohinki nodded once. "Good. I'll see you next class, Mari." He strode from the dungeons before she had a chance to answer. Mari ground her teeth in frustration.

* * *

A/N: And Marhinki gets moving.

Next time: Melian fluff. Thanks for reading guys! Please leave a review if you liked it :D


	4. Pestering

A/N: Hey guys :)

Sorry for the slight wait on this chapter, but if you've been paying attention to the Smosh fandom, it's probably obvious why I lost inspiration. I almost discontinued this fic, I was so upset. But I've decided to keep going, even though Melian is no longer a thing, and I'm going to keep the Melian in the story, and here's why, lol.

So I was going to just have Melanie and Ian be friends, but no romantic stuff, and I realized that wouldn't work, cuz it would make me (and probably some readers lol) too sad. Then I was going to cut Melanie from the story and invent an OC girl for Ian to go out with, but I can't do that either because I like Melanie too much. So I just decided it would be easiest for me to go through with the Melian I already had planned for the story. This will be a sort of tribute to them I guess, lol.

I hope everyone is all right with that decision, and I hope this chapter doesn't make any Melian fan burst into tears xD Cuz chapter 4 is, indeed, a fluff-filled Melian chapter. I hope you guys will enjoy their banter and random conversation.

* * *

_-Melanie-_

The stack of books was almost taller than she was. Melanie carefully selected one from the top, the most recent to be placed there, and eyed the cover. It showed a very pale pair of arms holding an apple in cupped hands. _Twilight, _it was called. She frowned and read the summary on the back, then wrinkled her nose and selected another. She wasn't in the mood for a cheesy romance novel. It might be good for a laugh at some point, but when reading her first Muggle book, she wanted to get a realistic portrayal of what life was like in their world. She had a feeling that book wouldn't be accurate in that respect.

When Mari had first seen the stack of books Melanie had happily organized beside her bed in their dorm, she had called her crazy for bringing them all to school. But the moment Melanie expressed an interest in Muggle literature, Mari had relented and brought her some books from home. Now Melanie just had the daunting task of selecting one. She grinned at her Patronus, which had wandered toward her, distracting her from reading the summary of the book in her hands. "You don't think I'm crazy, do you?" she asked the silvery lionness, and it raised its head, its eyes shining and its thin tail swishing back and forth. She had always been proud that her Patronus had taken the form of a lionness, as though it solidified that Gryffindor was indeed the House for her. Melanie reached toward its regal silvery head only to have her fingers pass right through its fur, and it disappeared in a flash. She sighed and drew back. That had been the longest she'd been able to hold the charm. Ian would be proud of her, even though he couldn't cast a Patronus of his own. Melanie shook the thought out of her mind and went back to the book in her hands.

It was called _The Outsiders..._and it was apparently about a group of boys in a gang. Wow, Muggle boys must have had a lot of time on their hands. How interesting. Was this what Ian or Anthony would be doing if they weren't magic? Melanie bit her lip, placed the book under her arm, and selected another. _Artemis Fowl. _She read the back cover and was delighted with the fantasy elements. She chose that one as well. And, better yet, the cover was _sparkly._

Melanie looked toward the door of her dorm when she heard Mari unlocking it, and a moment later her roommate strode through, looking very annoyed. "What a day," she grumbled, taking off her school robes at once. She turned toward the mirror atop the vanity table and absently straightened her red and gold Gryffindor tie and her black skirt.

"What did Finnigan want?" Melanie asked her.

There was a dramatic sigh. "Oh my God. So I'm so bad at Potions I have to take _remedial _Potions. Remedial! I'm such an idiot." She groaned and sat on her bed, hanging her head despondently.

"You're not an idiot," Melanie said gently. She walked over to her with her books against her chest. "I'm really bad at Astronomy, Anthony falls asleep in History of Magic, and Ian's never been very good at Transfiguration. Everyone has something they're bad at, but don't forget you're still really good at flying and Transfiguration. And at least Finnigan is trying to help you out."

"I suppose," Mari said sadly, gazing absently at her reflection at their vanity table. Then she gave a start. "Wait, that's not all. It's not Finnigan who's going to be helping me. I have to work with some stupid _Slytherin _boy_._"

Melanie frowned at this news. "Really? He made a Gryffindor and a Slytherin work together?" She turned the scenario over in her mind. "Has he...well, acted like a Slytherin?"

"Well, not yet, but I mean...he still is a Slytherin. He's going to be an absolute pain in the ass." She drew another sigh. "I wish I was as good at Potions as I am at flying. And I wish I could have been partnered with Ian or Anthony instead." Mari looked unhappily at Melanie, who tried to look sympathetic. In reality, Melanie wished she would give this Slytherin boy a chance. It didn't sound as though he had done anything yet to deserve such ridicule. Not only that, but Melanie felt Mari relied too much on her guys. Then Mari blinked at the books in her arms. "Oooh, you're reading my books! Which did you choose?"

Melanie sat beside her and held out _The Outsiders _and _Artemis Fowl. _"Will these be good for understanding the Muggle world?" she asked a bit anxiously. She wanted to better understand Ian when he talked to her about his home.

Mari grinned for the first time. "Well...sort of. They'll give you an idea, I guess. When are you gonna start reading?"

"When I can ask a Muggleborn what the hell all these weird things are," she said brightly.

"Ah. Ian will love that," Mari said, and they both laughed.

Melanie crossed her legs, carefully eyeing her reflection above the vanity table as well. "Of course he will. I'm supposed to meet him in the library in a few minutes, though. I'm going to read and he's going to do homework." _I hope he won't find my questions too annoying, _she thought, then pushed the thought aside. She had never been worried about that before, and Ian rarely became annoyed by anything.

"Well, don't drive him crazy with your questions about the Muggle world. I know you're fascinated by it for some reason, even though it's really boring." Then her friend paused and added, "Well, you guys don't have video games, so maybe we have you there."

"Video games?" Melanie repeated blankly.

Mari grinned. "Ask Ian. And you should get going. The library's quite a walk from here."

Melanie got to her feet and smoothed out her skirt. "Oh, right. I guess I should." She checked her appearance once more in the mirror on their vanity table, scowled when she noticed she had a makeup smudge on her eyelid, and settled down to fix it. "Oh, how did your Quidditch tryouts go?" she asked, knowing that Mari had wanted to tell her about it the moment she had arrived at the dorm.

And as she expected, her friend brightened up at once. "Oooh, they were so awesome! I flew great. I'm sure I made the team. I wish you guys could have been there, though."

"Me too, Mari, but I had a class. I'm sorry I missed it. I'll be sure to go to all your games to make up for it, cuz I'm sure you made the team too." Melanie turned and gathered up her books. "Okay, I'm going. Don't kill Anthony or Joshua while I'm gone. And be nice to that Slytherin boy. You might end up friends."

A dark eyebrow rose incredulously. "Yeah, right. I'll _try _to be nice to him, but if he makes fun of me for being a half-blood, or Ian for being Muggleborn, I'm hexing him."

"Well, I'll give you that, but he hasn't done those things yet." Melanie looked down at her friend, who was shifting a bit guiltily. "Give him a chance."

"I suppose." Mari drew a sigh before she inclined her head, looking a bit exasperated. "Oh, get going, you dork. And if Ian can't answer your stupid Muggle questions, you can ask me later."

Melanie grinned to herself as she walked toward the door. "Thanks. I'll see you later tonight."

She hurried down the staircase from the girls' dormitories to the common room until she remembered she was likely to fall at this speed and forced herself to slow down. Melanie hopped off the last two stairs, was impressed with herself when she didn't completely wipe out, and hurried past the lazy Gryffindor students. "Hi, Anthony," she said as she walked through the cluster of armchairs by the fire.

The dark-haired boy looked up from his essay. "Oh, hi, Melanie. Hey, have you seen Ian?"

"He's in the library, and I'm gonna meet him there," she said. "Joshua, you're making it snow."

Joshua dropped his wand arm quickly and drew his attention away from the fire, into which he had been zoning out. A light cluster of snowflakes dotted his black hair, and the small gray cloud above him dissipated. "Oops," he said.

Melanie giggled at the sight. "Oh, what's the new password for the Tower?" she asked them, as she knew Ian would not remember.

"It's Xylomancy," Anthony said when Joshua looked blank. "When will you guys be back? I want to ask Ian about this Charms homework."

She shrugged. "I don't know. Later." Melanie thought about it, and added, "Actually, we'll probably be at dinner." She was already hungry; there was no way she was missing dinner. "I'll see you guys then."

Melanie was hurrying through the portrait hole before they could ask her anything else. Her silly friends. Although, now that she thought about it, maybe she should ask Ian about their Charms homework, too.

She loved to walk around the castle by herself with no one to distract her. One reason was that she enjoyed scoping out the secret passages; contemplating whether or not a portrait or a suit of armor or a door pretending to be a wall might lead to another secret passage never ceased to be fascinating to her. She had once discovered that, if you shake the right hand of the suit of armor on the third floor by the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, a passage would open up behind him. Against her friends' wishes, she had followed it to discover that it led right to Hogsmeade. But it was also easier, when she was on her own, to see the fantastic paintings and tapestries, each its own work of art. Melanie stared far longer than she ought to at a beautiful piece of Rowena Ravenclaw. The tapestry held almost every color of blue imaginable, melting and mixing together so well she couldn't tell some aspects apart, as though it was its own optical illusion. It may have been very difficult to recreate that, but Melanie still wanted to try, and she thought about how she might approach that all the way to the library, passing busy students with her mind very much elsewhere.

The library was pleasant and quiet, with rows of bookshelves just waiting for her to read through, but she had to get through the little library in her dorm first. Ian was already there, as she had expected, but he didn't notice her approach. She put her books down beside him and he jumped badly. "Oops, sorry," she said, trying not to laugh; he was always very jumpy this early in the school year, and Melanie assumed it had something to do with the stress of classes beginning.

Ian shook his head slightly. "It's okay," he said, grinning at himself.

Melanie grinned too. "Anyway, here I am! What are you working on?"

But Ian frowned and tilted his head at the sight of the books. "Where did you get these?" he asked, setting down his quill and turning over the copy of _The Outsiders._

She explained excitedly, "I told Mari I was interested in Muggle literature and she brought me these from home! She's so nice." She pulled out a wooden chair and sat. "Now I'll hopefully be able to understand what the hell you're talking about when you mention your weird world."

He smiled at that. "Thanks. I guess."

"Is that Arithmancy?" she asked, looking at his homework. She wrinkled her nose at the complicated set of numbers and charts. "Good lord, this looks awful. Why did you and Anthony take this class?"

"It's not so bad," Ian said. "It's just numbers. I'm almost done, anyway."

She blinked at him, impressed. "Really? Dang. Oh, by the way," she said, grinning broadly as she opened up _The Outsiders, _"I'm going to be asking you questions when I see something I don't understand in this book. Okay?" Before he could answer, she had read the first sentence. "What's a movie?"

Ian shook his head slightly, smiling to himself, and refilled his quill with ink. "Remember when I told you about televisions?" he said.

She had to think about it. "Oh – the picture-boxes, right?"

"...Yes," he said, smiling behind his hand now. "It's like that, but on a much bigger screen, so a bunch of people can watch it at once. Well, at the theatre, at least. And it only plays one storyline, and it's about two hours long."

"Oh," she said, frowning down at the book. That's right – Muggles used televisions for all sorts of things, from news to entertainment. A movie must have been a part of that. Melanie wondered vaguely if Ian had ever seen one, and if he had, what it had been like. She assumed that a _movie house,_ which was what the book mentioned, was a theatre. She kept reading. "Who's Paul Newman?" Melanie asked almost as soon as Ian had returned to his work.

He raised his head. "I think he's an actor," he said.

"Oh," she repeated. "Weird." She finished the paragraph, which had consisted of a lengthy description of the narrator, something she found amusing and rather odd. This gang certainly had strange tastes in hair. And their names were pretty weird. But she brightened when she read that the narrator liked to draw. "Just like me," she muttered happily, and Ian looked at her questioningly, but she paid no attention. She read on, enjoying the descriptions of the narrator's brothers and listening absently to the scratch of a quill as Ian worked, before she frowned at a new phrase. "Uh...what's a gas station?"

"Cars run on gas," Ian said without looking up this time. He set some of his parchment aside, having apparently finished with Arithmancy, and reached for his Charms textbook. "Without it, cars stop running. At a gas station, Muggles fill up their cars and pay for the gas."

"I see," she said. After a moment's hesitation, she said, "What's a car, again? You talk about them a lot."

Melanie almost felt a bit guilty that she couldn't remember something he seemed to hold quite dear, but he didn't appear to mind. "They're machines Muggles can drive. They use them for transportation," Ian said. "Like...if we were to use broomsticks to get around. Only cars can't fly."

She tilted her head, scrunching up her mouth to the side. "They can't _fly? _That sounds, uh, dangerous." She thought about it, trying to imagine these clunky machines getting around in only four directions, but she could only picture them running into each other. "I bet there are a lot of accidents," she concluded aloud.

"Sometimes," Ian said. "But there are traffic laws and streets and lights to keep people from running into each other."

"Lights?" she repeated, and Ian patiently explained what traffic lights were. "Muggles need different colored _lights _to tell them when to stop and go?" Melanie shook her head, turning back to her book. "They must either be very dumb or very well trained."

Ian was grinning down at his Charms textbook, she could see him out of the corner of her eyes. Smiling to herself, and wishing to see him smile more, she continued,

"I mean, if they really can't tell when another car is about to hit them, there might not be any hope for Muggles. I'm glad we've been living separately all these years." She paused and opened up the _Artemis Fowl _book. "What's a computer?" she asked.

This took a bit more time. She watched Ian try to come up with the best explanation for her, one a pureblood would understand. "They're...like...interactive televisions that store information," he ended up saying, which only confused her further. "Uh, actually, ask Mari."

"Okay," she said, laughing. They worked and read in companionable silence for a while. Melanie noticed that Ian was zoning out more than he was writing his essay, which she found amusing, so she waited until he had sufficiently tuned the world out to ask another question. "Wait, Muggles don't know what fairies or goblins or gnomes are?"

And he pulled himself out of his daydream, looking a bit rattled, but said patiently, "Well, they sort of do, but they think they're not real. And everyone has a different idea of what exactly those magical creatures are, and none of them are usually close to the real thing."

Melanie took a moment to think about this. "How boring. Muggles must live very sheltered lives if they don't think that these things are real...they must not think that giants or werewolves or vampires are real then, right? And they're much more dangerous."

"Yeah, they think they're made up, yep." Ian frowned when the charm he had been attempting let off a spurt of flashing lights, like little silent fireworks. "What the hell is the point of this charm – why would we want to know how to measure a void between two solid objects?"

"I'm sure it's useful somehow," she said, grinning and watch him try again. This time there was one flash from his wand and he absently took some halfhearted notes. "All right, I'm done reading," Melanie declared, pushing her books aside. "Maybe I'll learn more about the Muggle world if I just ask you random questions about it."

Ian raised his head slightly from his parchment, a strange look she didn't understand settling over his eyes. "Okay," he said without looking at her.

"All right. So." Melanie turned toward him, but she suddenly realized she didn't have a clue what to ask him, so first she had to think about it. "Uh...um...where did you make your first friend?"

"In elementary school, I think," Ian said as he reread the passage about the charm they were supposed to learn.

"Elementary school?" she repeated blankly. "So you mean Muggles go to school before age eleven?"

"Yep." Ian raised his wand and muttered the incantation; there was the same flash of light, and he frowned and lowered his wand.

Melanie blinked. "_Wow. _Muggles must be really dumb. Did Mari go to this school too?"

"Yeah, a little later, after she moved to my neighborhood."

For a moment, she imagined them as little kids, growing up together and playing and just being children. Melanie was a bit envious of Mari for knowing Ian during this period of his life, but at least she was there to keep him company. "What did you guys do for fun?"

He shrugged, scribbling something then crossing it out and writing it again, and his expression was strangely blank. "Well, she taught me about the wizarding world, since I knew absolutely nothing. We practiced magic. We played video games and did homework together."

"Video games," Melanie repeated as her head spun from their history. "Mari mentioned those."

"Yeah, they're like...electronics made specifically for playing games," Ian said. At the look on her face, he said, "I'll show you one someday. I think Mari still has her old Gameboy."

"Uh, okay," she said. She couldn't imagine the thing being any more entertaining than Quidditch or spell casting or books, but she tried to keep an open mind. "So...Mari was the one who told you you had magic, right?"

He nodded absently. "Yeah, more or less. I didn't believe her, though, until she brought me to her dad. He explained stuff to me. But Mari taught me pretty much everything about the wizarding world."

Melanie kept her expression neutral, but her mind turned over. She was well aware of how close Ian and Mari were; they had grown up together, learned about magic together, and they were closer than brother and sister. Melanie was pretty sure there was nothing romantic between them and there never would be. But Ian always seemed so concerned about her, as though Mari was a little kid afraid of making decisions for her own. Mari relied on him and Anthony like they were her protective older brothers, and she often hid behind them as though they were her guardians. Melanie could remember one instance in which Ian was hesitant about Mari going out with some Hufflepuff named Wes. "Why are you so worried for her?" she had asked as they studied for the OWLs in the common room by the fire. Mari had just left to meet up with her boyfriend.

And a darkness she rarely saw cut across his eyes and he said grimly, "Because she hasn't chosen well in the past." Then the somberness vanished and he was himself again, asking whether or not she wanted to practice the Summoning Charm some more.

She snapped herself back to reality. Despite the two of them being roommates for almost six years, Melanie either didn't pay much attention to who Mari was dating, or her Japanese friend kept her relationships quite private. Either way, she thought it rather sweet the way Ian would try to look after her. "I see," she said. "Well, good thing. Otherwise you'd have been clueless when you were Sorted. That would have sucked." She nodded once.

Melanie was happy to see the smile she loved so much was still there. "It would have," he said.

She spent the last fifteen minutes before dinner asking him whatever floated through her head, whether it was about the Muggle world or not. Though he was always patient and kind to her, there were times when Ian would answer with warmth and times he was detached, and she could never quite find the reason why. As much as she enjoyed his company, it bothered her that she couldn't quite work him out. Melanie wished she could, somehow, get him to open up to her.

Until then, she was content bothering him and joking with him and making him smile. The two of them left the library in good spirits, and on a whim motivated half by a sudden burst of bravery and the desire to see what would happen, Melanie took his hand. She didn't miss the flicker of surprise before his face settled into a shy sort of content. Warmth spread in her chest, and they talked happily all the way to the Great Hall, when he let go of her and they joined their friends at the Gryffindor table.

* * *

A/N: Aww.

Good news, guys; I wrote this chapter without bursting into tears xD And I hope my readers read it and can say the same. Lol.

Next time: More Muggleborn hate and more plotlines get moving..yep.

I hope you liked the chapter guys :)


	5. Prejudice and Hexes

A/N: Sorry for the wait, guys :/

I should just call this chapter "Ian has a bad day" or "Ian talks with a bunch of people who don't like him for one reason or another." Lol. Poor Ian.

Enjoy :D

* * *

_-Ian-_

Arithmancy was probably a class he ought to pay attention in, but Ian could not help zoning out. Their professor's voice became a monotone buzz in the background as he lectured and set them their assignment, and by the time he had left them alone to work, Ian was left with just the chapter they were studying to figure out what he was supposed to do.

Feeling a bit sheepish, he opened the textbook to the correct chapter and set to work. Ian looked sidelong at Anthony's paper and saw he was starting on question thirty; with the quiet din of other chatting students around them, he followed suit. It wasn't until he was properly considering the question that he realized who was sitting on his other side.

Wes shifted uncomfortably when Ian met his gaze, and both boys fought for something to say. "Don't look so freaked out," Wes said quietly. "I just wanted to talk."

Ian just looked at him. Wes was probably the last person with whom he wanted to speak. Part of him felt a bit guilty – the last time he had spoken to him, he had been shouting and ended up turning the Hufflepuff into a slug, so wound together were the hexes he cast. But Ian would never deny that it hadn't been deserved. The memory sent a pang of dull anger through his heart, and he said coolly, "About Mari?"

He didn't miss the other boy's wince. "Yes, actually," he admitted. He tilted his head so his longish brown hair obscured his eyes as he pretended to focus on his work. "How is she?"

"Better," Ian said shortly.

Wes waited for him to elaborate, but Ian pretended to go back to his work too, and the Hufflepuff sighed. "Has she got a new boyfriend?"

"Not that I know of," he said. Actually, he was perfectly aware that Mari would not be dating for a while, perhaps not at all during their sixth year after what had happened with Wes. The question set off another wave of anger, however, and Ian very nearly snapped his quill. It was not like him at all to hold grudges, but he found forgiveness much harder when the infraction had hurt his second sister. "What do you care?"

The other boy looked a bit taken aback. "I just wanted to be sure she was doing okay. I was a pretty terrible boyfriend."

Ian clenched his jaw and looked down at his work. Thus far, he had written a nonsensical series of numbers and incantations, none of which were relevant to the problem. He would have to start over already. With a wave of his wand, he erased some of his work. "Yeah," he said, and it took effort to keep his voice low. "I thought Hufflepuffs were supposed to be loyal."

Wes suddenly looked so abashed he sat back in his chair, staring down at his parchment. He was silent for such a long time Ian was sure he had decided to drop the subject, so he went back to his work. But just when Ian had finished the first problem, Wes said suddenly: "I didn't mean to do it, all right? It just sort of...happened. I really cared about that other girl."

This was the last thing Ian wanted to discuss; he couldn't have cared less about Wes' feelings. "That doesn't matter," he said, his tone uncharacteristically cold. "You were dating Mari at the time. She was hurt. It took her a while to get over it." It was one of the few things Ian had never forgotten.

He focused intently on his work, suddenly unable to look at Wes. The second problem involved some of the star charts from his Astronomy class, so he Summoned the correct chart from his bag. Wes was silent at last. Ian hoped he was thinking hard about what had transpired between him and Mari; but a part of him felt a bit guilty for speaking to him like that.

When the bell rang and they began to pack up, Wes spoke at last, his voice a hushed, angry whisper. "Just so you know, I am sorry about what happened, and I've tried to tell Mari that, but she's still afraid of me or something."

"I'm not telling her for you," Ian said before he could continue.

Wes' brows knitted together in anger before he went back to packing his things. Ian stood up and walked out of the classroom, but he remembered he always had trouble finding the way to their next class, so he turned to ask Anthony for directions.

But to his surprise, Anthony had stayed behind to talk to Wes. He frowned at the two of them, wondering what the hell they were talking about – Anthony didn't even seem to be angry with him. They were grinning, as a matter of fact, which just made Ian uneasy. He couldn't imagine that Anthony had forgotten the year before. Suddenly feeling oddly betrayed, Ian decided he could try to find his own way to Transfiguration.

As he walked, Ian tried to find some familiarity within the paintings and suits of armor on the walls, but nothing gave him a clue that he was heading the right way. He sighed and folded his arms, continuing down the hall anyway; he was pretty sure that this hall lead to the staircases, from which he could get to the second floor. Anthony had discovered a shortcut a few years back, but he was damned if he could ever remember it.

He was wandering past another hallway, his mind buzzing from his encounter with Wes and very clearly elsewhere, when someone called to him. Ian stopped dead, looking down the other corridor.

"Hey! Mudblood!"

Ian had been told repeatedly by his friends that the word _Mudblood _was a nasty, offensive word and he should hex whoever called him by the slur. But the truth was, he simply didn't care; it didn't matter much to him what people thought of his blood status, as he believed it was a petty thing to worry about anyway. But Ian could easily imagine Anthony's angry glare when he turned and answered to _Mudblood._

It was who he expected; a pair of seventh-year Slytherin boys ambled toward them, wearing smug, rather stupid smirks and their wands already drawn. Ian just looked at them, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. These were the idiots who often tried to hex him whenever they ran into each other, but often weren't smart enough to manage the spell correctly. _All because I'm Muggleborn, _Ian thought, bemused. He raised his eyebrows when they stopped in front of him. "Was there something you wanted?" he asked, his voice tight with feigned politeness.

The larger Slytherin smirked and aimed his wand. Ian looked down at it without much fear. "You almost walked right past us, Mudblood, without even saying hello," he barked thickly.

"Oh, sorry," he said. "Was that all?"

His eyes flicked to the shorter but meaner looking one when he aimed his wand too. "We're gonna show you what happens to stupid little Mudbloods who cheat their way into this school," he sneered. He scrunched up his nose when he spoke, making his appearance all the more rat-like.

Ian would not be surprised if their next spell missed him, rebounded off the wall, and hit one of them in the face. He was looking forward to seeing that, but sometimes their reasoning for targeting him could be pretty entertaining too. So he asked, "How did I cheat my way into Hogwarts?"

"Mudbloods don't have their own magic," the bigger one said. "You stole it from a real wizard."

_If that were true, _Ian thought bitterly, _I would have been able to get rid of it._ The comment angered him, and he reached inside his school robes for his wand. "Sure I did," he said, as though speaking to someone very young, or very slow. "All right. Cast whatever you were going to cast. I'm ready."

The seventh-year boys exchanged a glance, but raised their wands. Ian saw a flash of yellow light; a moment later, the bigger of the Slytherins was on the ground, clutching his left foot and howling. Ian smirked, stowing away his wand, as the hexed boy frantically tried to remove his shoe.

"What the hell did you do?" the smaller one cried, looking down at his friend in horror.

Ian didn't reply; he would have his answer in a moment anyway. As the Slytherin's shoe came flying off, they saw that his toenails were already three inches long and continuing to grow. Panicked, the smaller Slytherin cut the boy's toenails with a quick Severing Charm, but they grew back at an even quicker rate. Ian was trying very not to laugh. He flicked his wand, and the boy shrieked as the toenails on his other foot began to grow out of control as well.

The smaller one raised his wand at Ian. "Damned Mudblood!" he snarled. "Look what you've done!"

"_Don't _call him that," snapped a voice Ian very well recognized. He turned to find Anthony striding toward them, his eyes steely and his expression drawn, his wand held at the ready.

As the bigger Slytherin sobbed and tried to contain his toenails, the other blinked at Anthony. "But that's what he is. A Mudblood."

"I don't give a damn if he's Muggleborn or not, that isn't a good thing to call people," Anthony growled, coming to a halt as he reached them. "It might help to use his name."

The boy looked at Ian. "Don't know his name," he said.

Anthony rolled his eyes. "Get out of here, then," he snapped. "Or else I'll hex you too. I know a few Darker spells than a toenail hex."

Ian had no idea what spells those might be, but both Slytherins did not look as though they wanted to stick around and find out. The boy collected his friend, whose toenails were each about two feet long; he ran, and the other hobbled along like an awkward penguin, trying to keep his curled and lengthy nails from impairing his movement. Anthony burst out laughing at the sight.

"Nice," he said appreciatively, nodding toward the hexed Slytherin as they disappeared from view. "See, I knew that spell would come in handy."

Ian grinned too. "Mari taught it to me," he said. _And she told me to use it precisely on those Slytherins. I'll finally be able to tell her I did. _

"Anyway, are you all right? Those stupid Slytherins didn't curse you, did they?"

"No," Ian said quickly.

His friend's eyes grew pensive, and he blinked when Anthony frowned at him. "Seriously, though – I hate it that you don't care when they call you that...that word."

He shrugged. "It's not a big deal. I mean, they're not wrong – I _am_ a Muggleborn."

Anthony raised an eyebrow disbelievingly. "Come on. They target you _because _you're Muggleborn, and that's not right." When Ian shrugged again, his friend sighed and dropped the matter. "All right. Why the hell were you going this way?"

"You know I can't ever remember your shortcut," Ian told him, and to his relief, Anthony grinned. Suddenly he remembered why Anthony hadn't been walking with him in the first place, and he sent him a strange look and asked, "Why were you talking to Wes?"

Anthony just shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. He has some textbooks I wanted to look at."

Ian found this hard to believe; he didn't know why Anthony wanted to do some extra studying. But he didn't want to cause a conflict. "If you say so," he said, and let the matter go. "Is it left or right to get there?"

He looked again at the fork; neither direction looked familiar to him. Anthony rolled his eyes and took the right corridor, and Ian hastened to follow him. "Ian, you've been going to Hogwarts for almost six years. How can you forget the way to Transfiguration?"

"I don't know," he said with a sigh.

"We should get you a Rememberall," his friend joked.

Ian shook his head. "They only remind you that you've forgotten something; they don't tell you what you've forgotten. It wouldn't help me much."

Anthony pressed his lips together and shook his head too. "You're hopeless, then."

He smirked at that. They had arrived at the vast corridor filled with rotating and shifting staircases. Ian allowed Anthony to navigate toward the second floor, as he knew he would probably get lost trying to figure it out himself, and indeed, once they had arrived at the correct floor, Ian was zoning out and hadn't paid a lick of attention to the route. He forced himself back to reality when they joined the group of students waiting outside the Transfiguration classroom.

"Anthony!" he heard a girl say. His friend turned, surprised, when a couple of fifth-year Hufflepuff girls walked up to him. One of them was holding a tray of orange drinks. "Do you want some pumpkin juice?" she said eagerly.

Ian almost burst out laughing when Anthony's face drained of color; he looked as though the girls had offered him poison. _Ah, so Mari told him. _"No," he said at once, and the girls' smiles fell. "No, I don't think I will, but thanks...I'm gonna go over here with..." His voice trailed off and he stalked silently into the crowd.

The girls looked so frustrated Ian couldn't help but smirk; one muttered something about "sneaking it into a pasty" as they stalked away. Almost at once, Ian heard someone yell, and before he knew what was happening, he was enclosed in a rib-crushing hug by his oldest friend. "Ian, I did it!" Mari cried. "I made the team!"

"What?" he said blankly; it took him a moment to figure out what she was talking about. "Oh – that's great, Mari!"

She beamed as she released him. "Thanks," she said brightly, raising her chin proudly and rocking back and forth on her heels. "Rhett says that our first game is sometime in November. You better be there!" And she said it with such vehemence he would not be surprised if she hexed him should he refuse.

"I wouldn't miss it," Ian said. He certainly didn't want to face Mari's wrath if he missed her first game of the season.

Mari smiled broadly. "Yay! I'm so excited. I think I've gotten even better, Ian, you should watch us practice sometime. Oh, there's Jovie! I haven't told him yet. Hey! Jovie!" She waved and shouted in their friend's direction, and she slipped through the crowd.

Ian grinned to himself, happy that she was happy, and that Mari wasn't letting last year's disastrous relationship slow her down. Soon he would have to think more about what Wes had said to him in Arithmancy, but the matter was shoved out of his mind as Melanie sidled up to him. "There you are," he said to her, smiling. "How was Divination?"

She placed her wand behind her ear and smiled at him, too. "The usual. She predicted that purebloods born in April will probably contract lycanthropy before they're seventeen. So you only have about seven months with me, Ian, before I'm all claws and teeth and fur."

"Uh, Jesus." He blinked at her. "Well...Trelawney's predictions are usually accurate, after all."

"Yeah. I seem to remember her saying that blue-eyed Muggleborns are liable to get struck by lightning before their sixth year. I guess you're a magical miracle. You've beaten the imprecise, phony, faulty odds." She smirked. "Well done. Trelawney will be disappointed to see you're still alive."  
"Thanks. I guess." He was smiling at her sarcasm.

"And how was Arithmancy? I trust there were _numbers._"

"There were," he said, "but I zoned out and I can't remember much of what we talked about."

Melanie giggled. "You know, I hear that often enough from you that it's become worrying. Although, I guess I'd be more concerned if you suddenly remembered everything you were told. Hmm, I wonder which would freak us out more?" And she placed a hand on her chin, apparently giving the matter some serious thought.

Ian rolled his eyes good-naturedly. Neither of them saw the professor march past them, but suddenly the students in front of them were ambling into the classroom, chatting about whatever floated through their heads. With an almost shy smile, one he very rarely saw from her, Melanie gently took his hand. Ian felt himself tense; he squeezed her hand once and let go. "I'm sorry," he told her quietly, his school uniform suddenly too hot, "not here." And he hated that he didn't know how to explain the reason; he simply didn't like showing that much affection in front of so many other people.

She was smiling sadly now. "It's all right," she said. "Soon, though, I hope?"

He bit his lip. "...I don't know," he said honestly, and he watched her worriedly, afraid it would offend her.

But Melanie didn't look offended. "Oh, you big dork. Someday I'm gonna get you to show that you like me."

He had no idea what to say to that. Melanie laughed and pulled him into the classroom.

Ian sat between Melanie and Anthony, who still looked a bit disturbed and tense at the Hufflepuff girls' attempt to slip him a love potion. They brought out their quills, parchment, and Transfiguration textbooks and prepared to learn. Ian looked at their professor, who he thought resembled a bird of prey a bit, with his curved nose, thin face, and piercing eyes. He had shaved his head and always wore black robes buttoned up to his neck. He was the most recently hired professor at Hogwarts, beginning just this year. They had not learned much about him, as most of their lessons thus far that year had been revision, and they had barely begun the appearance changing spells. But all of them had quickly discovered that he was not one to be crossed and was quick to take away House points.

Professor Orcroft eyed his class and the chatter died down at once. "I hope that some of you have brushed up on the appearance changing spells," he said in a flat voice, "because a few of your quiz scores were unsatisfactory. With that being said, I'm aware that nonverbal spells are now expected in your Defense Against the Dark Arts and Charms classes. From now on, nonverbal spells are required in Transfiguration as well."

Ian looked uneasily down at his blank parchment. He could only really cast nonverbal spells in Charms; and Transfiguration was tough enough for him without being unable to say the incantation. But he would have to make do. He absently turned through the pages of his textbook, searching for the chapter their on which their last teacher had left off.

"You will read up on the spell _Multicorfors _on page 221 of your textbook, divide into pairs, and attempt to change the color of your partners' school robes. Begin."

And he settled into his desk to grade papers without another word. The class seemed to have realized they were supposed to have started working, because once everyone had recovered from the abrupt instructions, they settled into their textbooks. Ian forced his mind not to wander and read the passage multiple times. The spell's magical origin and wand movement reminded him of the _Avifors _incantation he had learned in his second year, one that involved turning objects into birds. Perhaps he wouldn't have as much trouble with it.

Anthony turned to him warily when the class had begun to divide into pairs. "Please don't hex me," he said, drawing his wand.

Ian sent him a wry look. "I'm not going to hex you. Hold still." He repeated the incantation twice in his mind, aimed his wand and Anthony's black school robes, and thought _Multicorfors! _Nothing happened. "Dammit. All right, you try."

His friend raised his wand. "_Multi – _oh, shit. Uh – hold on –" Ian tried hard not to laugh at how hard he was concentrating, his brows furrowed and his lips pressed together. He waved his wand, but nothing happened. Anthony slouched dejectedly in his seat.

Ian tugged at the left sleeve of his own school robes. "Hey, that wasn't a bad try. I think they're a little bit grayer. Okay, ready?"

They practiced for about half the class period. By then, their classmates had begun turning their partners' robes into various undesirable shades of colors; Ian and Anthony laughed at Melanie's disastrous attempt to turn Mari's robes blue, in which they ended up camouflage green, but both boys quickly sobered when Ian turned Anthony's robes into a gross, vomit-colored orange. "Aw, _Ian,_" his friend grumbled, lifting his arms and looking down at himself.

He couldn't hide his smile. "Sorry," he said quickly. He waved his wand. "I meant to turn them red. _Finite. _There. They're back to normal." Anthony sent him a withering look, gesturing at the orange hue still clinging to his clothes. "Well, almost."

"All right, I'm going to get you back," Anthony said with a grin, raising his wand.

Ian smirked, preparing himself, but it was then that their professor stalked by the desk, looking at them through his beady eyes and down his curved nose. Anthony looked nervously at Ian; when he waved his wand, Ian instinctively closed his eyes. He opened them to find his robes had turned a dark navy.

"I expect that wasn't the color you meant to use, Mr. Padilla," Orcroft remarked coolly. "Perhaps a bit more practice is in order." He then stalked down the rows of desks, watching his students' successes and failures, sneering his criticisms and ignoring any successful spells.

Ian looked to Anthony, who was scowling. "He should have given you House points for this," Ian said, tugging on the sleeve of his school robes.

Anthony shrugged moodily. "It's Orcroft. He wouldn't have given us House points if we Transfigured the castle into a giraffe."

"_Did _you mean to use this color?"

"Well..." His friend sighed. "It was supposed to be a different blue, but it ended up a bit too dark...but I mean, it's better than our first attempts."

"It was," he said, scowling at their professor, who was moving back to his desk. Anthony had deserved those House points; what was the point of teaching if those who did well received no praise?

Their next attempts, for almost the remainder of the class period, were far more disheartened. Ian successfully turned Anthony's robes to a Gryffindor red once and wasn't able to do it again when Orcroft came around their desk once more. By the end of the class, when the bell was minutes away from ringing, he felt discouraged, and he was only half listening when Professor Orcroft concluded his lecture.

"There have been reports of Muggleborn attacks in the _Prophet _lately," he began, staring around at all of them through narrowed eyes.

Ian raised his head, suddenly giving Orcroft his full attention. He wasn't about to defend Muggleborns...was he?

"The _Prophet _insists that Muggleborns are our equal; that there is no difference between the way we do magic and a Muggleborn does." His already steely face hardened. "Please do not believe these lies. Muggleborns have somehow gained enough acceptance in our society that they have been allowed to attend Hogwarts. If none of you want your magic further drained, I suggest you turn in any Muggleborns you come across."

A shocked silence greeted his words. Ian tried not to fidget, to look too guilty - in fact, he fought not to react at all. _Oh hell...what is going to happen when he realizes I'm a Muggleborn? _He suddenly felt Anthony tense beside him, and to his horror, his friend opened his mouth and declared heatedly, "Bullshit. Absolute bullshit." Ian was frozen in his seat. "Muggleborns have just as much magic as the rest of us. I'm not turning any of them in."

"_Be quiet, _Mr. Padilla, and ten points from Gryffindor for your language," Orcroft snapped. "I am simply trying to warn you. It is our duty as purebloods to keep this school clear of filth."

"Filth like you and your beliefs?" Ian stared down at his textbook when Melanie piped up angrily to his left. "There is _nothing _wrong with Muggleborns, and they don't steal our magic, dammit!"

Orcroft straightened his back. "Enough. A further ten points from Gryffindor. I have stated my opinions; you may act on them if you choose." The bell rang. "You are all dismissed."

Ian, Anthony, Mari, and Melanie walked away from the classroom in a daze. Anthony was the first to recover. "Can you _believe _that?" his best friend spat. "_How _could our headmaster have hired someone like him? God, what a nightmare this year is going to be."

Melanie shook her head. "It's so sad. I don't understand how some people can feel that way when there's no proof about any of that stuff about Muggleborns. _Keep this school clear of filth..._what, of some kids who actually study and get good grades?"

But it was Mari who surprised him most of all. "You guys shouldn't have said those things to Orcroft," she said quietly.

Anthony looked at her quickly, his eyebrows raised. "What? Why not?"

Ian's oldest friend kept her gaze on the stone castle floor, uncharacteristically despondent. When she spoke, her voice was quiet. "Because I think he's figured out who the Muggleborn in our group is."

The corridor was suddenly too warm. Ian looked straight ahead, ignoring and hating the way his friends sent him guilty, sympathetic glances; it certainly was not their fault. But he didn't want to think about what this might mean. He knew that his friends were worried that Orcroft might turn him into the Snatchers, the wizards who rounded up Muggleborns and exchanged them for gold, but Ian was more concerned about his Transfiguration grade. _Oh, well, _he thought dully as they walked to lunch, _I'm sure it'll be nothing to worry about. _

* * *

A/N: A general note; I _do _like Wes lol, so I'm sorry I made him such a dick. But when the characters are only 16-17ish, they're pretty liable to make mistakes like that. So please don't think that just because I made Wes a bad guy, that must mean I don't like him lol.

Anyway. Sorry if this chapter was a little too boring & had too many lessons & stuff; I'm still trying to set up the plot and characters lol, but next chapter will have some more interesting stuff. & that's enough Melian for a while, lol.

Next time: A scene with Mari & Sohinki as they brew a potion & try to get used to each other. Then Kalel invites Anthony to a party, & he drags his friends along too. Lol.

Thanks for reading guys :)


	6. Halloween, part 1

A/N: Another wait. I'm sorry. Next chapter should be quicker.

Guess who forgot there are three Chasers on a Quidditch team? xD Well, now I have an excuse to bring in Flitz, at least.

This chapter is easily the longest one in this fic so far, sorry about that. It was oddly difficult to write. Kalthony is not my strong suit I guess, lol.

Anyway. A Marhinki scene, then the narrator changes to Anthony & we have some plot.

Enjoy :)

* * *

_-Mari-_

The dungeons were _so _cold. Mari shivered as she scowled down at the half-finished potion between herself and Sohinki. As he quietly read the next set of instructions, Mari's mind wandered to the Quidditch practice she'd had earlier that day. She had flown beautifully, easily passing the Quaffle between herself and Felix and Flitz, and to top it all off, Rhett had complimented her on her flying skills. It had been a great practice; it was easy to see that they would win the next match when everyone was having so much fun.

What was not fun was being stuck in the Hogwarts dungeons making potions with a Slytherin. Mari cursed her inability to brew potions and thought instead of the excellent catch she had made when Felix had accidentally thrown the Quaffle too far from her. "Are you going to pay attention, or do you expect me to brew this whole thing?" Sohinki snapped at last.

Mari forced herself back to reality. Anger had her seething. "Sorry," she said heatedly, "I guess I just don't like –" She swallowed and reigned in her temper. "I mean...sorry," she said lamely.

Sohinki looked at her a moment, then just shrugged. "It's all right. I know brewing potions isn't the most exciting thing to do. I'm just not supposed to do all your work for you. That's not the point of Remedial Potions." His eyes flicked over to hers, and Mari realized he was worried he had offended her.

"Yeah," she said quickly, "I get it. Sorry. What's next?"

She glanced down at their potion. The Draught of Living Death had been left to stew for a week, as the book had instructed them, but if they didn't hurry and add the correct ingredients soon, the potion would be ruined. "Doxie eyes, wait five seconds, stir clockwise six times," Sohinki said.

"All right. Doxie eyes." Mari glanced at the little jar and thanked whatever deity was watching that she didn't have to touch them. She did, however, wrinkle her nose as she dumped them into the potion, which hissed and bubbled. Mari waited, counting the seconds in her head, and then grabbed the metal spoon and stirred. "So," she said, and Sohinki looked at her, "where are you from?"

There was a pause. "What does that have to do with Potions?" he said at last.

Mari almost laughed. "Oh, come on. We're stuck brewing potions together for the better part of a year. We may as well get to know each other, right?" She forced a smile, remembering what Melanie had said to her: _Give him a chance. _But when Sohinki still hesitated, Mari sighed and said, "Would it help if I told you where I'm from first?"

Sohinki shrugged uncertainly. "I guess," he said.

"Okay. Well, I was born in Japan, but my family moved to the States when I was still a baby. We lived for a short while in San Francisco, then we moved to Sacramento. My mom was never able to adjust to wizarding towns, with their weird customs and magic everywhere, so we always lived in the Muggle side of town. Oh, I'm half-blood, by the way." She sent him a glance, wondering if this would be the moment the Slytherin would act like a Slytherin. "Not sure if that matters, though."

After a moment, Sohinki shook his head. "It doesn't," he said quietly. He paused again, then added, "I am, too."

She gaped at him. "Wow! Really? Just like me! I didn't know they let half-bloods into Slytherin, though. You must be the first." As Sohinki rolled his eyes, she prodded further, "But seriously, where are you from, then?"

"You're a bit nosy, aren't you?" he said with a wry smile.

That shut her up for a moment. Ian and Melanie had told her the very same thing when they were younger. _Bad habit, _she thought, shifting guiltily. "Well...I guess so. Sorry, you don't have to tell me. Forget it."

But to her surprise, Sohinki sighed and relented. "I'm from Germany," he said at last. "Berlin, actually."

Mari raised her eyebrows. "Wow, that's so cool. Do you speak any German?"

"A bit, but...well, it's been a long time since I've had to use it."

"Same here, with my Japanese," Mari admitted. "I speak it when I go home every summer, of course, but I'm at Hogwarts speaking English most of the time. It's faded since I started school." She frowned, wistfully remembering the days she could rattle off strings of Japanese when her parents had Ian over for dinner, until her father told her it was rude to speak another language when Ian couldn't understand her. She tried to recall exactly what she had said, but she shook it out of her mind. "Anyway, we moved to the States for better opportunities, and because Hogwarts is the best and my parents knew I would probably have magic." She nodded once and looked at him. "Why did you come here from Germany?"

He didn't look at her when he answered. "Same...same reason," he said quietly. Mari hesitated, sensing he wasn't telling the complete truth, but before she could comment Sohinki continued, "Some parts of wizarding Germany don't especially like half-bloods."

"Oh," she said. Mari had encountered very little hatred regarding her blood status; she knew she didn't have it as bad as Ian, but on occasion some Slytherin would make a snarky comment about half-bloods being only _half _as good as a 'real wizard.' She understood why Sohinki might not want to talk about it. "Well, we're here now, after all. I mean, we're all at Hogwarts for the same reason – to learn to use our magic. I'd think that our grades would reflect how good we are, but for some reason blood status has something to do with it too." She rolled her eyes, smiling good-naturedly, and turned to find Sohinki grinning too. "Anyway. What's next?"

Mari nodded toward the potion. Sohinki stared at it for a moment before he seemed to remember that they were supposed to be working, and he looked hastily at their textbook. "Um...the five one-by-one inch cubes of hippogriff liver."

And he gestured at the five cut up gray blobs sitting in a dark liquid. Mari stared at them, wrinkling her nose, and when she imagined picking them up and feeling their inevitably spongey, wet texture, she shuddered. "Do I _have _to touch them?"

Sohinki sighed. "Is that your problem with Potions?" he said. "You don't like touching the ingredients?"

"Well, I mean...it's so _gross!_" Mari gave another shiver. "Hippogriff livers? Really? Ugh, God." She shook her head, her hands clasped to her chest.

The Slytherin boy just looked at her for a moment before he picked his bag off the floor. "Here," he said, selecting something from within, "try these. They might help."

They were a pair of gloves. "Ooooh," Mari said as she took them and ran her hands over the scaly texture. "Are these dragonhide?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I only really use them if I'm handling some prickly ingredient, but you can use them if, uh...everything grosses you out." He smirked.

She sent him a wry look as she pulled the gloves on. "Hey, now. Not everything grosses me out. Just the squishy stuff. Okay." She plucked all five cubes of hippogriff liver from the table and plopped them within the potion. "Sweet! They didn't bother me at all."

His smile was more genuine this time. "Good."

"Maybe I'll pass Potions now, with these." Then she laughed. "Sorry, Sohinki, I don't need you anymore. I guess I just needed gloves."

He laughed too. It was a nice sound.

* * *

_-Anthony-_

Wes handed him a textbook. "Here," he said. "If you want to study about Dark magic without me, I found another book for you."

Anthony took it. The cover read _Advanced Dark Spells, Volume Two._ He grinned; finally, something new to read. He'd already read the first volume cover to cover twice. "Awesome," he said, tucking the book under his arm and picking up his bag. "Thanks. So, same time next week?" Admittedly, the library probably wasn't the best place to practice such a forbidden school of magic, but he couldn't think of a better place aside from empty classrooms, and he liked having the books handy. That, and his friends were not likely to catch him.

The Hufflepuff was still packing up his textbooks and supplies. "Yep! See you then. And maybe we'll get that Instant Darkness spell working."

He smirked. The spells they practiced were so low in terms of a scale of Dark Spells that they were closer in respect to joke or prank spells. They would never attempt anything dangerous. "I hope so. All right, see you later."

Anthony walked out of the library, already flipping through his new book, but he froze when someone stopped suddenly in front of him. His heart leapt to his throat when he recognized his best friend. Ian stared wordlessly at the book in his hands, and he took it from him and eyed the cover. His expression was neutral, but Anthony had known him long enough to sense when he was uneasy. Wes hurried past, ignoring Ian entirely. "Bye, Anthony!"

Ian gave him the book back. Anthony offered him a weak smile, knowing he was in trouble. "Dark magic," his friend said slowly. His normally bright blue eyes were steely, and a frown cut between his brows. "That's why you've been meeting up with Wes. He's been teaching you Dark magic."

"Well...not entirely _teaching, _as we don't really practice it," Anthony said. _Well, at least not the dangerous stuff, _he thought wryly. "More like...reading about it and understanding it better. They don't teach us enough about it here."

"For a good reason." Anthony had not seen Ian look this angry in a long time; it was completely foreign, and he even looked a little surprised with himself. "Why the hell do you want to learn this stuff? Are you going to be another Dark wizard?"

"No!" He shook his head quickly. "It – it just interests me, all right? There's something about it that's really fascinating, and I just want to learn more about it."

Ian looked at him with troubled eyes. "I thought you wanted to be an Auror," he said slowly.

"I still do. But an Auror has to understand the spells being cast at him, right?"

There was uncertainty in his friend's gaze now. "I...guess," he said.

"Right. So don't worry about me and Dark magic – I won't be joining the Death Eaters anytime soon." He smirked at the idea, and he felt a bit better when Ian smiled a bit hesitantly.

"With Wes, though?" Ian said, his expression growing serious once more.

Anthony almost winced. He understood why Ian didn't like Wes; he had seen Mari in the aftermath of the breakup, and it hurt to think of it now. "He's not that bad," he said. Ian narrowed his eyes coldly, and Anthony hastened to add, "He knows he messed up and what he did was wrong."

"Does he ask you about Mari?" his friend asked.

"No. He doesn't. We've talked about nothing but the Dark Arts – maybe Quidditch a little bit, but that's all." When Ian still hesitated, he went on, "Relax. We're not going to get into trouble or practice anything really bad – no Unforgivables, I promise."

"All right," Ian said, looking marginally more at ease. "Never mind. Don't kill yourself learning this stuff, though."

"Don't worry about it," Anthony repeated; Ian had let it go, as he had known he would. "Ready for Charms?"

He knew they would have an easy class ahead of them. The sixth and fifth years were working on the Amplifying Charm; it was always entertaining watching his classmates attempt the charm and become suddenly startled when their voices would become loud and resonating without warning. And, with all the voices and chatter around them, Anthony knew he could talk as much as he wanted with Kalel. Ian looked distant as they walked through the corridors. "I guess. I've never been good at Amplifying Charms, though."

Anthony rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. You got your O in Charms; you'll be fine. I'm the one who's going to have trouble." Charms wasn't his weakest subject, but he had a feeling Ian could use the encouragement.

Ian grinned, but shrugged modestly. "We'll see."

They were a little bit late for class; all the other students had already filed into the Charms classroom. The two of them hastily joined their classmates within. Ian sat between Mari and Melanie, and Anthony was relieved to see that Kalel had saved him a seat and was waiting for him with a smile.

He sat beside her, his heart suddenly pounding painfully in his chest. "Hi," she said, grinning up at him.

Anthony hoped his answering smile wasn't as weird as he imagined. "Hey," he said. "How are you?"

"All right, I guess. Just trying to get ready for OWLs." She grimaced. "Are they really as bad as everyone's telling me?"

They were, but he couldn't tell her that. "Not really. I'm sure you'll be fine. Didn't you tell me the other day you can already cast a corporeal Patronus?"

Her round face brightened with a grin. "I did."

"Not a lot of people can cast that by their fifth year. See, you'll be fine."

"You think so?" She scrunched up her mouth thoughtfully. "Well, thanks."

They listened to their professor, a short, rather rotund young wizard who always wore his favorite pointed hat, as he explained to them that they were simply continuing their practice of the Amplifying Charm today, as Anthony had expected. He then let the class study and he moved along the rows of desks, instructing and helping students.

Anthony attempted to engage Kalel in conversation once more, but before he could say anything else, there was a tug on the right sleeve of his robes. He looked over to find a tiny Ravenclaw fifth-year girl he didn't know. Her grin was wide as she said, "Hi, Anthony. Care for a pumpkin pasty?"

She held out the little orange cake, embraced with a pink wrapping.

He felt his stomach roil, and without thinking, he drew away at once. "Uh, no thanks," he said quickly. He couldn't imagine what his face looked like, but he had probably turned a bit green.

Kalel frowned at him. "I watched her cook those, Anthony. She worked really hard at them."  
The girl's grin widened. Anthony swallowed nervously, suddenly trapped. How could he explain that the pasties were spiked with love potion without, well, doing just that? The little Ravenclaw held the cake out further, beckoning him to take it. He hesitated, frozen and without a clue as to what to do.

Suddenly, someone was behind him, holding onto his shoulder for support, and Mari leaned over and plucked the pasty out of her hands. "Awesome, I love these! Thanks!" And, grinning hugely, she sauntered back over to Ian and Melanie's desks, who were both trying not to laugh.

Kalel was scowling. "That was rude," she said. The girl slumped in her chair, muttered that she would make more, and turned away from them.

Anthony was very grateful he had friends who cared. He clenched his jaw and flipped absently through his textbook, torn between laughter and embarrassment. "Yeah," was all he could think of saying.

"That girl's in your year, isn't she? I think she plays Quidditch, too. My dormmate's boyfriend plays Chaser with her. He says she's bossy and obnoxious but one of the best fliers ever."

He smirked. "She's all of those things," he admitted. He had to speak a bit louder; one of the girls in the row below him had successfully cast an Amplifying Charm, and her voice echoed loudly throughout the class. "Anyway, what are you doing for Halloween?"

The holiday wasn't for a couple more days, but lots of people were throwing parties that weekend in anticipation. Anthony understood that wizards and Muggles celebrated Halloween much differently; Ian and Mari had attempted to explain to him the concept of trick-or-treating, but it just left him confused and wondering what the hell Muggles were thinking. Wizards enjoyed playing on the darker concepts of Halloween, letting ghosts run free and laying pranks everywhere, but the way Ian and Mari had described it, Anthony had apparently missed out when he was younger.

Her face lit up again. "Well, nothing on the actual day, but tonight there's gonna be a big party in the Room of Requirement again. You're going, right?"

"Yes," he said at once.

"Awesome. It's gonna be a lot of fun. Toby's throwing it of course, so everyone's going to be there, and there should be plenty of booze to go around." He was nodding happily to this, already making plans to attend, but then his stomach turned over when she grinned at the boy on her other side. "Marco here said the firewhiskey was enchanted again."

"Really," said Anthony, his mouth suddenly dry. He eyed the Ravenclaw boy. He was wiry and dark-haired, his features pointed, and Anthony remembered seeing him on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team. He was also sitting far too close to Kalel for Anthony's liking.

"Yeah. So bring everyone you can. It's gonna be hilarious." She turned and grinned at that Ravenclaw boy again, and Anthony had to fight to keep his face neutral when she affectionately patted Marco's arm.

The boy's smirk was testing his patience. It was rather leering, with his narrowed eyes and wide grin. But his words were innocent enough, or perhaps only because they were in Kalel's presence. "We went to last year's Halloween party. It was awesome." Anthony could hear the Italian accent in his voice, hidden by the years of attending Hogwarts, but it was still there.

Anthony couldn't remember what he and his friends had done for Halloween last year, but he supposed that was rather the point. He did not want to go to this party alone, however – he knew that Joshua, Melanie, and Mari would go with him, but it was Ian he wanted there. His friend's calm, aloof nature and disregard for any sort of slight toward him might help Anthony keep his head amidst all the alcohol and Kalel's presence. He also knew, however, that Ian probably would not want to attend – he'd said he wanted to study for a Charms test, a revision session his friend probably did not need at all.

He spent the rest of the class thinking of a way to persuade him to go, and it hit him just as they were preparing to leave. Grinning rather vindictively, and thinking bitterly of the time Anthony had been forced to go to one end of semester dance with a particularly annoying girl and Ian had conveniently disappeared, leaving Anthony to deal with her the rest of the night, he waved good-bye to Kalel and joined his friends outside the class.

* * *

"So. I'm going to a party later tonight."

They sat in the Gryffindor common room, in the armchairs by the fire, with sleepy students chatting quietly around them. Ian barely looked up from his Charms textbook. "Okay. Have fun."

Anthony smirked. He had pretended to study for a while, but with the party drawing closer, it was hard to concentrate. _This _was going to be fun. "You're going, too."

"I am?" he said quickly, and this time he did look up. He looked so surprised, and only mildly concerned, that Anthony felt a little guilty before hastily plowing on.

"Yes. See, uh, it's going to be a really good one, and you should be there." He watched him carefully. Surely Ian would not see through his lie. He could scarcely tell one of his own, after all.

But something in his friend's expression hardened, and he said flatly, "You just want me to be there because you still can't talk to Kalel."

Which left Anthony frantically trying to come up with a retort. He'd talked just fine with her in their last Charms lesson, after all, but he couldn't form the words because parts of the exchange had still been rather awkward. And he'd still had to endure his friends' teasing after the pumpkin pasty incident. He had to settle for telling him the other half of the news. "Well, you can't get out of going, because someone's expecting you to take her to the party."

_This_ he did not expect. Ian blinked at him. "Uh, who?" he said, a bit nervously.

Anthony could not keep the smirk off his face. "Delilah Jackson," he said, and he watched Ian's eyes widen. "I told her you would take her to the party. Remember that time I had to go to the end of semester dance with what's-her-name, and you ditched me? This is for that."

Ian dropped his head into his hand and said nothing for a long time. Delilah Jackson, a Hufflepuff one year below them, had been hounding Ian for a date for years; it had turned to something close to stalking by the end of their fifth year. Ian had tried every polite way of turning her down, and Anthony knew he didn't have the heart to tell her to leave him alone or hex her or something. She seemed to have lost interest this year, but clearly that had not been the case when Anthony had approached her. When Ian did speak, his voice was flat and monotone. "Why would you do this to me?"

"Because it would be funny," he admitted. "And I didn't think you would want to go."

"I would have gone if you had just told me the reason why you wanted me there," Ian said, and there was an uncharacteristic edge to his voice. "There was no reason to drag Delilah into it."

"Delilah?" came Mari's voice. She had just wandered through the portrait hole, still wearing her Quidditch uniform and very muddy; Anthony looked dispassionately at the filth she was tracking across the carpet. "What about her? I thought she was history."  
"She's not, thanks to Anthony," Ian said grimly. "What happened to you? It wasn't raining that hard today."  
Mari grinned proudly. "Flitzy and I were going for the Quaffle at the same time – we ran into each other and I fell off my broom. The field's Slowing charm caught me but I still fell in the mud. It was awesome." Anthony grinned and Ian rolled his eyes and shook his head. Only Mari could think something like that was awesome. "Anyway, Anthony, what did you do?"

Anthony winced, but Ian spoke first. "Forget it. I guess I'm going to Toby's Halloween party tonight."

"You should go too, Mari," Anthony said to her.

She frowned and looked down at herself. "But I'm all muddy."  
"It's not for another half hour," he insisted.

Ian sent him an uncharacteristically vicious look. "She doesn't want to go."

"No, no, I can get changed in time," Mari said indifferently. She walked toward the staircase that would take her to the girls' dormitory. "Don't worry about it. I'll drag Melanie along, too."

And she disappeared into the dorm. Anthony shifted a bit guiltily, but shoved the feeling aside at once. "So...it starts at eight. I guess I'll see you there."

Ian scowled at him in response.

Half an hour or so later, Anthony walked toward the Room of Requirement a few paces behind Ian and his date. Delilah was chatting very happily and very constantly, and she had curled her thick blond hair for the occasion. She was holding tightly onto Ian's arm, and Anthony didn't have to watch his friend much to see the strain on his face; he hated being touched, especially by someone he didn't know well. Anthony smirked to himself. This was going to be hilarious.

Part of him did feel a little guilty; Ian had not deserved to have Delilah inflicted on him, and he had been perfectly willing to help Anthony without forcing him to go to the party. Anthony admitted grudgingly that he hadn't needed to tell Delilah that Ian would bring her. Perhaps he was too worried about what would happen that evening; whether or not anything would progress with Kalel, or if their relationship would suddenly come to a screeching halt.

When they arrived at the party, the noise was defeaning. The Room had taken the form of three hangout spots combined into one; a bar, a dance floor, and one small area with couches and armchairs, where students were getting drunk and playing drinking games. There were more people there than he had ever seen; students laughing, dancing, and drinking, and some were in costume – Anthony saw a girl dressed in a skimpy werewolf outfit and a boy dressed as a goblin; no doubt the hooked green nose and large ears would seriously offend a real goblin. Delilah dragged Ian through the crowd at once to show him off to her friends, and Anthony lost track of him. So much for that plan – he hadn't counted on the fact that Delilah would want to spend every minute with him at the party, but he supposed he should have expected it. Now he wouldn't get to enjoy watching Ian have to put up with her, either. Anthony was left to find Kalel himself.

He found her at the bar, laughing far too enthusiastically at some joke a boy had told her – Anthony took a careful look at the boy and saw, with a pang of disgust, that it was indeed Marco. He would have hoped he'd get to talk to her alone, but he would somehow have to make do. Trying not to sulk, Anthony approached the bar. "Hi, Kalel," he said.

She beamed at him, but it was obvious she was distracted; Anthony could smell the alcohol on her. "Hey! You made it!" She scooted off the bar stool and stood on her toes to hug him; something that very much surprised him and the boy with whom she had been speaking.

Anthony recovered hastily as she released him. "I got you something," he said, pulling a tiny book out of his pocket, unshrinking it, and handing it to her. He might have been a socially awkward teenager, but at least he had brought her a present. Her eyes widened as she studied the cover. "You said your favorite subject is Care of Magical Creatures, so I thought –"

A squeal of delight cut off his words. "Oh my gosh, this is perfect!" she cried, turning over the copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them._ "All the copies at the library are always checked out. Thank you!" Kalel hugged him again, throwing her arms around him rather dramatically; Anthony felt the book hit him in the back of his head, but he grinned, pleased with her reaction, and by the fact that Marco was now scowling.

"No problem. Anyway, what are you up to?" By the looks of the shot glasses on the bar counter, it was rather obvious – he cursed himself for his lack of social skills. Kalel grinned at him.

"Just talking and drinking." She grabbed his elbow and somewhat unsteadily led him over to a barstool, and he sat on her other side. "Marco was telling me about the OWL tests. He said they were pretty nasty; I think you were lying to me, Anthony."

"Maybe they weren't as bad for me," he said with a touch of nervousness; he tugged awkwardly on the sleeve of his robes, suddenly out of his element. His grades had not been bad; he'd gotten plenty of Es and an O in Defense Against the Dark Arts, but they certainly weren't top level. He tried to ignore Marco smirking at him.

"Well, whatever they are, I hope I do all right. Do you think my study schedule is sound?" she asked, hiccupping slightly. "I have a two hour break in between Charms and Care of Magical Creatures, so I study every day then – and after classes, I don't tend to go to sleep until eleven, so I study till then. And weekends, too. Uh, was that all?" She scrunched up her round face, giving the matter some serious thought.

Anthony stared at her. "That...seems plenty," he said.

Kalel paused a moment, considering his tone, before she said briskly, "Well, I've got to make sure I do all right, you know. I decided to take these classes – I have to make sure I do my absolute best." She nodded once.

He swallowed, choosing his words carefully so he wouldn't offend her. "I don't know, it seems like you may be overworking yourself," he told her.

Kalel blinked at him. "But if I don't give one hundred percent, I won't do well."

"You're giving about three hundred percent," he said gently.

The rounded blue eyes became reproachful, and he almost drew back. "I'm just doing what I have to do to succeed. I want an O in every subject."

"You're doing fine, Kalel," Marco said from her other side. "Don't worry about it."

_I'd worry about it, _Anthony thought grimly. _She's going to kill herself studying that hard. There's no reason for it. _But Kalel was looking shades more cheerful, or perhaps it was the alcohol, and Anthony didn't want to continue criticizing her. He was distracted from the matter when the bartender came over to him. Anthony blinked up at him when he recognized David. "What are you doing here?" he blurted out.

David was a seventh-year Gryffindor Anthony and the others were friends with; he was boisterous and confident, but Anthony could tell he cared about them all a lot. The stockier boy shrugged. "Toby asked me to tend the bar, so I did," he said. Anthony remembered that David and Toby were dormmates, along with Rhett and Flitz.

Anthony couldn't help but grin. "Have you ever bartended before?"

"Hey now. It's not really that hard – I just Summon whatever you guys order, and I pour shots." He sent Anthony a wry look.

"I see," he said. "Well, no more for her." He nodded to Kalel, who thankfully was not paying attention; she was already reading Marco some passages from _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,_ while the Italian boy tried to look politely interested.

David frowned at her. "Hmm. Good point. Sorry about that." He looked back to Anthony. "So. What can I get you?"  
He asked for a beer. David then sauntered off to attend to some other people who had joined them at the bar, leaving Kalel, Anthony, and Marco alone. Marco kept sending him mocking looks, almost as though he knew something Anthony did not – he _hated_ that, so he set out to make sure he made Kalel laugh and smile more, but she spoke first.

"Tell me about your family," Kalel said to him, not without another drunken hiccup. She closed up the book Anthony had given her, placing it neatly under her small, folded hands on the counter.

Anthony smiled. Despite his disagreements with his parents over blood status, his family was very important to him – his two younger brothers and younger sister were not yet old enough to attend Hogwarts, but they were all magic too of course, and the family owl brought him their letters almost every week. "I have two younger brothers named Matt and Brendyn, and a little sister named Kimberly. She's still a toddler."

Kalel's grin widened and she cupped her face in her hands, looking mollified. "They sound adorable," she said.

"They are," he agreed with a small smile. "Matt tried to hide in my trunk when I was getting ready to leave, and Brendyn jumped on me at the platform before I could board the train. And Kimberly's getting better at saying my name. She doesn't say _Anfonee_ quite as much anymore."

She was giggling into her palm now, her eyes shining as she imagined it. A warmth spread in his chest. "You seem to care about them a lot," she said.

"Of course I do," he agreed; it was far easier to care for them than his parents because his siblings were not, as far as he knew, prejudiced regarding blood status. And family was, indeed, very important to him. He was happy Kalel had spotted that right away.

"My family is apparently descended from Rowena Ravenclaw herself," came Marco's voice from Kalel's other side. Anthony tried to keep his face neutral when she turned toward him.

"Really?" she said, tilting her head and fumbling for her drink. "You're probably a pureblood, then."

"I am – but we have a certain disregard for any prejudices associated with blood status," he said, his voice annoyingly smug. But it was more irritating that Anthony could not say the same of _his _family.

He was not going to give up that easily, however. He jumped to the next topic he knew Kalel would respond well to. It was a bit childish, really – both of them trying so hard to impress her, but Anthony didn't know what else to do. "My parents breed hippogriffs," he said. Actually, they worked at a plantation that bred them, but he wasn't going to tell her that. It was very dangerous work, simpy because hippogriffs were such distrustful creatures and prone to attack at the slightest sign of disrespect. He hadn't been allowed anywhere near the pastures. Even with the charms preventing the animals from flying away, his parents still didn't want any accidents.

Her eyes widened and she turned back to him. "Oh my gosh. That's so cool. They're a threatened species, and I guess they can be really brutal if you approach them the wrong way, but they're so fantastic once you get to know them. I've read about them a lot – there are so many rules for interacting with them, it's kind of ridiculous. But interesting. Definitely interesting." She finished her rant and smiled at him.

"My Patronus is a hippogriff," Marco cut in.

She smiled. "Mine is...well, see for yourself."

Kalel drew her wand as she turned around on the bar stool. Anthony could see the unicorn hair poking out of the cedar; it was clearly an old wand, beaten up and handed down, and he wondered why she had received someone else's wand. After a moment's concentration, she said in a clear voice, "_Expecto patronum._"

There was a chorus of "Ooooh!" from the students at the party. A lithe, silvery shape burst from her wand. Anthony stared as the creature formed; it was some sort of wild cat, lanky and spotted, its ears large and its tail short. It trotted up to Kalel, and when she reached for it, the cat disappeared into silvery wisps.

Anthony looked sideways at her. He was privately a little impressed that a she could cast a Patronus at all, especially a little bit drunk; he had never tried, not even to see what sort of form it would take. "What sort of cat was that?" he asked her quietly.

She stowed her wand inside her robes and turned back to her drink. "That was a serval," she said.

"That's really a difficult bit of magic," said Marco. "It's really impressive how easily you cast that."

"Aw, thanks," she said, beaming at him; Anthony scowled at himself, wishing he had been the one to compliment her spellwork.

"You'll get an extra point on your Charms OWL if you show your examiner that you can cast one," said Anthony. He hadn't gotten the point; neither had Ian, but Melanie and Mari had both shown off their Patronuses and received a bonus toward their OWL.

Her eyes widened. "That would be awesome. So I pretty much have that in the bag, then."

There was a short pause. David brought Anthony another beer, for which he was very grateful, but he was in the middle of sipping at it when Marco said quietly to Kalel, "What are you doing next weekend?"

Anthony tried not to choke on the beer, but it was a close thing. _God dammit. _That was the last damned straw – he decided to let the alcohol run his words and abandon his usual caution for once. He cleared his throat loudly, but Kalel was already speaking. He hated the eagerness in her voice. "Oooh, we should go to Hogsmeade! That would be so fun!"

"Yeah, it would," Marco agreed pleasantly.

The sudden courage left him. Anthony then had to listen to Kalel rattle off exactly what they should do within the town, and suddenly it was as though she had forgotten Anthony was there. He sipped moodily at his beer, received another, and drank that as well. As he brooded and grudgingly tried to come up with a way to engage her in conversation again, Anthony looked to his right and saw that Kalel had gone, and Marco too.

Cold disappointment spread in his chest, and he looked around quickly; he had lost her in the chaos of the party. Presumably she had been called away by one of her Ravenclaw friends, but it still hurt that she hadn't even thought to say good-bye to him. They'd been talking for a couple weeks in Charms, after all. Surely she would have realized he would be hurt if she suddenly left...then again, she had been pretty drunk, and so was he, if he was honest. Oh well. He'd finish his beer, then try to find her again.

But he was startled when someone sat on the stool beside him; Anthony looked up into Marco's sharp gray eyes. "Look," the other boy said, his severe features softened in the dim lighting, "you're not going to have much of a chance with her."

"What?" Anthony hissed. He had to stop himself from drawing back, but he did grip the neck of the beer bottle with unnecessary force. "Why would you say that?"

A wide smirk crossed the Ravenclaw's face. "Because if I recall correctly, your family doesn't take too well to half-bloods," he said.

Anthony's heart sank. "She's...she's a half-blood?" he said slowly. Memories surrounding his last relationship buzzed faintly in the back of his mind; his parents' disappointed stares, the stress in the eyes of the girl he had so revered, the angry letters pelting her House table every morning.

"She is. And she knows what your family will say about her."  
For a moment, both of them were silent. Anthony stared at the stained wood of the bar counter. The girl he had dated a year before had indeed been a Ravenclaw, so it was no wonder these two knew about it. He should have known she wasn't right for him anyway if she would go gossipping about the reason they broke up. He swallowed hard. "I'm not giving up," he heard himself say.

"Really? You're going to fight me for her even though you're in the wrong House and your family won't appreciate her blood status?"

"Yes," Anthony said firmly. He looked at the other boy. "I guess it would be easier to just hex you and pretend I didn't do it, but I'm not going to do that. I'll play fair if you will; Kalel gets to decide who she wants to date, and of course she might not want either of us." He paused to let Marco consider his words. "Do we have a deal?"

The dark-haired boy grinned. "Yeah, whatever. But I don't intend to lose."

"I don't, either," he said.

"I'm taking her to Hogsmeade next weekend. You have the rest of the week to make your move." He offered another irritating smirk, before adding, "I'll see you in Charms," and promptly left.

Anthony sat at the bar alone, his posture hunched and his head in his hand. Part of him had no idea why he hadn't just admitted defeat. He hadn't known Kalel long enough to be truly _in love _with her, as cheesy as that was, and he hoped that his attraction to her wasn't just physical. He couldn't explain it, really. He just wanted to get to know her better, to make her laugh, be there when she was upset. And it had been a long time since he'd thought about dating anyone after the mess last year.

David came by with another beer for him, but Anthony refused it. "You look like you need another," the older Gryffindor said. "Tough break. I hope it works out."

Anthony shrugged uneasily. "Thanks," he said, but now that he was paying attention, he had no idea what he was going to do. Why had he insisted on fighting for her? She was beautiful and confident and popular, and he was shy and anti-social. How the hell would this work out?

As he sat there thinking about it, he thought about the curiosity that had sparked the instant he saw Kalel cast her Patronus. He looked down at his wand. He'd never been interested in casting the charm before, as he'd never had a reason to, but if magic was tied up with its caster's emotions the way people said it was supposed to...he picked up his wand, stood up, and wordlessly made his way out of the party, stumbling a bit as his slightly tipsy self pushed past the crowd of students.

It was not difficult to find an empty classroom at this time of night. He sat on the desk, cleared his mind and focused on his own magic, and began to practice. Mari had told him it had taken her just a few tries before her Patronus had formed; it was the same as her Animagus, a dark tabby cat. Melanie still had a bit of trouble with it, but no one could deny that her lioness was impressive. Anthony thought intently about his happiest memory, which was needed to produce a Patronus, and put more effort into learning the charm than he ever had toward one of his assignments.

Part of him was disappointed, but certainly not surprised, when the ashen-gray serval finally formed. He sat heavily at a desk, watching the weak and newly manifested Patronus trot slowly toward him before it vanished into silvery wisps of magic. It had matched Kalel's perfectly. Anthony closed his eyes. He'd been wondering about his feelings toward her for a long time, but he hadn't needed a confirmation quite this dramatic.

He got to his feet and headed back to the party. It seemed he could not, indeed, give up on her that easily. Even with all the problems that would arise if he and Kalel did begin dating, he would spend the rest of the night trying to get to know her better. Anthony hoped he was not about to make the same mistake twice.

* * *

A/N: A wild Lasercorn appears! I don't know why, but I can easily picture him as a bartender lol.

Fun fact; I wanted the conversation between Sohinki and Mari to be as accurate as possible, so I asked Sohinki on Twitter where he was from lol, cuz I had no idea. He told me to make it up xD So I did. I wish he'd given me a real answer lol but it was still awesome of him to respond.

So now we know why Anthony's been meeting with Wes...Anthony is genuinely interested in learning more about the Dark Arts, but he doesn't want to be a Dark wizard or anything. He just thinks it's interesting. I don't think his friends are going to feel the same way about it, lol.

Next time: The party continues from Ian's point of view. This party isn't going to be great for either half of Smosh, I'm afraid, as next chapter has some drama and feels, which this story has lacked a little so far.

Thanks for reading guys! :)


	7. Halloween, part 2

A/N: This is probably my favorite chapter so far :D I should have just called this chapter "Ian's my favorite, so here's some more character development for him." Haha.

Hope you guys enjoy :)

* * *

_-Ian-_

"If you're not going to pay attention to me, I'm going to go dance over there." Delilah gave him a sidelong glare, her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed together.

Ian just looked at her. "Okay," he said neutrally.

She got up with a huff and went to find her friends, where he knew she would complain about him. Ian didn't care. She had been a nuisance all night, trying to be wherever he was and talking over him, introducing him as her date to anyone who would listen. It had been unbelievably annoying, but Ian didn't have the heart to tell her he wasn't interested. The date was over at last, and the problem had just taken care of itself.

And now he was finally free of her. He rubbed at his eyes, trying to ignore the pounding music and the loud chatter around him. The smell of alcohol was quickly becoming too strong. He couldn't wait to leave. Ian had not been lying when he told Anthony he didn't want to go; he was too tired for a party like this, and he had wanted to continue his study for that Charms test coming up that week. Charms was his best subject; it wouldn't look good for him if he suddenly flaked on it now. Ian looked around the crowd of students, hoping that he could find his friend and let him know he was leaving, but he didn't see Anthony anywhere. He spotted Toby and Joshua locked in a fierce game of butterbeer pong. By the looks of their drunken, dazed faces, neither appeared to be winning.

"Ian?" a small voice said suddenly.

He looked up quickly, and smiled when he saw who it was. "Hi, Melanie," he said. But the smile slipped away when he saw her uncharacteristically drawn, strained expression. His heart skipped a beat and he sat up straighter. "What's wrong?"

The blond girl swallowed several times. She kept fumbling with the clasp of her robes near her collar. "It's Mari," she said, and something in his throat tightened. "I – I don't know what's wrong with her. Can you come look?"

"Yes," he said immediately, getting to his feet.

He couldn't explain the constricting feeling in his chest as he followed Melanie through the crowd. Admittedly, Mari was not the type of person who would need nor appreciate their help, and she had aided him many times throughout their childhood. But Ian hadn't even seen her yet and he couldn't shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong with his pseudo-sister, and part of him was angry with Melanie for leaving her alone. His thoughts jumped to the worst conclusions at once and it took effort to keep calm.

They found Mari sitting by herself in a little armchair near the fireplace. Ian knew instantly that something was amiss just from the way she was sitting. She was hunched over, her thin frame trembling, and staring blankly at her knees. Ian approached her cautiously. "Mari?" he said faintly, arriving at her side.

She fumbled for his hand, but didn't meet his eyes. "I don't feel good," she mumbled, so quietly he almost didn't hear her.

Her weak voice sent a flash of pain through his heart. This was the same person who had confidently declared that falling off her broom into the mud was _awesome – _it hurt to hear her speak like that. He nodded. "I know. It's okay. Tell me what's wrong."

"My head...my stomach. And the lights hurt my eyes." Her words were rather slurred, making her sound almost drunk. Any other person would have thought that was the case, but Ian knew Mari well enough to know this was not her usual state of mind after too many firewhiskeys. She blinked rather owlishly, and when Ian peered closely at her face, he saw her pupils were dilated.

His blood ran cold. Ian looked up at Melanie, who was standing anxiously at Mari's side. "Did she have a drink?" he asked, his voice tight.

She swallowed. "Yes."

"Where is it? Who gave it to her?"

"I – I don't know, I know she had it, but I don't know where she got it or what happened to it."

Ian turned back to Mari, his mouth set in a grim line. They might not be able to figure out where her drink went, but at least he had a pretty clear idea of what happened. He squeezed the hand that had found his. "Mari, we're going to have to take you to the hospital wing, okay?" he said gently.

"You – you think there was something in her drink?" Melanie said, horrified. Her posture was frozen, the usual animation gone. Her wide, telling brown eyes stared through him, as though hoping he would tell her differently.

He knew she had never heard of date rape drugs, as they were common at parties in the Muggle world, but he also knew that there were a lot of potions in the wizarding world that would do the same thing. Ian would give anything to know who had given her that drink, but he had to make sure Mari would be all right first. "Yes," he said softly. He didn't take his eyes away from Mari. "Are you ready to go?"

"Where's she going?" a rough, drunken voice demanded.

Ian looked up. A seventh-year Hufflepuff he didn't know had staggered over to them, a sloshing half empty cup of firewhiskey in his hand. There was a tense moment of silence; when no one seemed to have figured out what to say, Ian said, "To the hospital wing. I think there's something wrong with her."

The boy snorted. He had longish, lank blond hair, and he was snub-nosed with a thin face. "Of course there is. Look at her; someone slipped something into her drink."

He tried to say something else, but Ian spoke first. He felt suddenly numb, his magic humming dangerously in his veins. "Did you do this?" he asked, his voice uncharacteristically harsh. He had gotten to his feet and had reached for his wand without a second thought.

"No," the Hufflepuff said at once, unaware of his fury, "but that shouldn't spoil our fun, so you shouldn't take her away before we have some. Unless you want her first or something. You can have her next, then, after us."

The words hit him like a slap. For a moment, Ian was so angry he couldn't move or speak. There was something very, very wrong with the world if, upon finding a drugged girl, the first thing the seventh-year had thought to do was get her alone; especially when that girl was someone Ian cared about a lot. Every nasty curse and hex he had ever learned throughout his sixteen years came to mind, but it was hard to pick just one.

The enchanted lights in the room flashed. Several students squeaked with fright; the Hufflepuff frowned and looked about uncertainly. "Are you doing that?" he said, blinking drunkenly.

"No," Ian said, but he had no idea, and he didn't really care.

The seventh-year shrugged. "Well, get out of here, or get out of the way – those drugs don't last forever, you know."

A light bulb shattered.

"_Everte statum,_" Ian hissed, and the Hufflepuff flew backward with a yelp – students parted to give him room to land roughly on the floor.

He heard Melanie let out a sharp gasp. The seventh-year propped himself up on his elbows, his expression twisted and furious; he fumbled for his wand. "Damned Mudblood – _Reducto!_"

Ian conjured a nonverbal Shield Charm and the curse bounced away harmlessly. The guy shouted some more obscenities at him, namely about his blood status, but Ian was beyond caring. He wanted this drunken asshole to pay for what he had said. Ian raised his wand, intent on giving the Hufflepuff a curse that would make his life hell for a few days, but the guy got up first. He began to stumble his way over to Ian, shouting more foulness his way, with his wand raised and ready; Ian aimed his wand, intent on making sure the guy did not cast first.

But there was a flash of red light from behind the Hufflepuff and he collapsed at once. David met his gaze, his eyes steely. "Thanks," Ian said, though he hadn't needed the help. He flicked his wand toward the unconscious Hufflepuff and thought _Furnunculus! _for good measure.

Painful red boils erupted over the boy's face. David scowled at him, striding closer. "Ian!" he snapped, and canceled the hex with a wave of his wand. The Hufflepuff's face returned to normal. "For God's sake, you're a prefect."

"Did you hear what he said?" hissed Ian. As rage seethed in the back of his mind, the lights flickered on and off, and a couch upended itself into a table, which shattered.

Several people screamed. Ian froze. _Oh God...not again. _A few people sent him wary, fearful glances, and quickly began to move away. Ian quickly stowed his wand in his robes. He had seen those looks before. It was the same terrified look his parents used to send him every time he unwillingly used his magic. David looked around at the damage, oddly calm; Ian prayed he hadn't understood what happened. "It doesn't matter," David said. "What he said, I mean. It doesn't matter. You need to help Mari."

Ian knew he was right. No matter his fury toward the drunken Hufflepuff, Mari should have been his priority right then. Ian turned quickly back to the armchair, where Melanie was already trying to get her to move. His pseudo-sister had covered her ears with her hands, her knees brought up against her chest. Ian guessed the chaos of the party had only managed to confuse her further. He arrived at her side once more, kneeling beside Melanie, who stood to give him room. He grasped her arm. "Mari –"

She let out a tiny shriek and shrank away from him, hiding her face. Ian knew she had never intended to react that way, but seeing it still hurt. She had no idea who he was and why he was trying to help her, and she perceived him as a threat. Getting hit with that Reductor Curse would had been less painful. He heard a muttered hex, and he looked up instinctively, but it was only David. One of the drunken students had attempted to avenge their fallen friend, but David him sent away squealing with a neat little hex Ian didn't recognize.

"Is she all right?" David asked, glancing down at them.

Ian looked at her. Mari was rocking back and forth in the chair, muttering to herself and obscuring her eyes. "I'd say no," Ian said with more of an edge than intended.

David fixed him with a steely gaze. "You can't control your magic," he said.

He suddenly felt as though he had been kicked in the stomach. Ian grit his teeth and reached for Mari's hand; this was the last thing he wanted to talk about right then. "I'm a little busy right now, David," he snapped, as Mari let out a squeak of fright and drew further away.

The older Gryffindor scowled at him. "Fine. Whatever. I just thought I should know how much danger I'm in when I share a common room with someone who might be a threat."

Ian closed his eyes briefly with a pang of shame. "It only happens when I'm angry," he muttered at last.

Melanie stepped around them, her wand drawn and her expression determined. "Ian, get Mari out of here – the drunk idiots are getting angry again."

Mari had attempted to shrink away from him once more, but he pulled her to her feet and half carried her out of the party. It was slow going; some people tried to stop them from leaving, and a few hexes sailed over his head, but he ignored the chaos around him. Perhaps his magic was helping him get out of the party, because Ian didn't have to raise his wand once. The doorway was a welcome sight when he finally made it through the crowd of people, but it took effort to get it open with Mari clinging to his shirt. He felt worn and scared when he closed the door to the Room of Requirement behind them, and he had to lock it with a quick _Colloportus _to prevent anyone from following.

By then, however, Mari seemed more frantic. He had hoped that the silence and stillness of the castle might calm her, but still she edged away from him, hiding her face from the bright candles illuminating the corridor. Ian took her hand and led her to the stone bench at the foot of a statue of Gregory the Smarmy. "Mari?" he said quietly. "I'm sorry, I know you –"

"I don't feel good," she repeated.

"I know," he said. "Come on. I'll get you to the hospital wing."

But she shook her head. "No. No. I think I'm staying here, Anthony."

Something twisted horribly in his chest. Ian looked at her, trying to ignore the fear and the hurt, but it nearly overwhelmed him. _God, she's really messed up. What if she never gets better? _He had to force aside his emotions before he could speak. "Ian," he corrected gently. "I think Anthony's still at the party. I can get him for you, if you want."

But Mari appeared not to have heard him. She began to rock, rubbing at her eyes and mumbling something he could not hear. Ian gently took her shoulder, but she shrank away from him, recoiling. "No!" she stammered, her face a mask of fear. "I – I don't know you, I'm not going with you..."

Ian stared at her. To see her withdraw from him, as though he was a source of fear, hit him like a physical blow. She was so confused she was by turns clingy and then suddenly terrified of him. He swallowed hard, trying to figure out what to do next. "Mari –" he began.

"Just go," she mumbled. She had hidden her face again.

The silence in the corridor seemed deafening. Ian just looked at her. He could drag her to the hospital wing, or even knock her out with a spell and bring her there against her will, or he could try to make her recognize him. He had more faith in the latter; with Mari so fearful at the moment that he knew she might never trust him again if he did that to her in this situation, even if he was just trying to help.

No, the best thing to do was to make sure she knew who he was. Then he could get her to the hospital wing without a struggle. _She'll listen, _Ian thought. _If it's me, I know she'll listen. _They had known each other since they were nine years old – he had the best chance of snapping her out of her confusion. Ian took a breath and knelt in front of her, gently taking her hand. He looked up at the confused and shaking girl, hoping she would meet his eyes. "Mari, look. It's me."

Perhaps it was his voice she recognized, because her trembling eased suddenly, and she lowered her hand away from her face. There was a short pause as she simply looked at him. Ian stared into watery, dark brown eyes, slightly bloodshot but a clarity returning her gaze. Her face lit up as surprise took over, and then wild joy passed through her face. She threw her arms around him. "Ian!" she exclaimed, hugging him tightly. He could still feel her shaking.

He hugged her back. "Yeah," he said faintly. He still felt winded and hurt from her confused panic attack, but at least she finally recognized him. Ian hoped he didn't sound as pained as he felt. "Mari, I'm going to take you to the hospital wing, okay?"

She drew back. "What? Why? Is someone hurt?" She ran her dark eyes over him, checking for injuries and spell damage, and he swallowed the lump in his throat.

"No," he said quietly. "I'm fine. I think you may have drunk something bad, okay? I'll take you there to make sure everything's all right."

Her eyes widened, focusing on his words. She clenched his hand almost painfully. "Okay, Ian," she said in a slurred voice, and he could hear the substantial amount of trust placed in the words.

The door swung open, slamming against the wall as whoever had attempted to open it broke past Ian's Locking Charm; Melanie stumbled into the corridor, looking harried and tense, and she slammed the door to the Room of Requirement closed. "_Colloportus,_" she muttered. She swiped her blond hair out of her eyes and looked at them. "Hey. How is she?"

"Better," Ian said. "What about David?"

Her mouth twisted into a grim smirk. "He managed to distract everyone. I think he got them all drinks."

_The last thing they need is more alcohol, _Ian thought darkly, but it wasn't his problem. "Look, I'm sorry to send you back in there, but can you find Anthony for me? Tell him what happened. Please. He's gonna want to know." _And it's his fault for dragging us to this party, anyway,_ he thought bitterly.

Melanie nodded briskly. "Okay. I'll find him. Will you be okay taking her to the infirmary?" She looked at the Japanese girl, who was rocking faintly on her heels, her eyes glazed over and glassy. She was holding onto the folds of Ian's uniform as though afraid she might topple over.

"We'll be fine. She'll follow me there." He said it with conviction, though he had no idea why his words were true. It was just an understanding between him and Mari he could not explain.

"Okay," Melanie repeated. She spared Mari a final, worried glance. "I'll come by later. She better be okay by then."

* * *

Ian was almost carrying Mari by the time they arrived at the hospital wing. For most of the trip, he had attempted to keep her aware and focused by asking her questions only she could answer, but at some point, her voice had become too soft to hear and she buried his face in his shoulder, as though the enchanted candles lighting the halls of Hogwarts hurt her eyes too badly.

Needless to say, Ian was nearly beside himself with worry by the time he placed her on the hospital wing bed with the mediwitch on her other side. The school nurse had heard them approach and was ready and waiting with her wand and supply of potions. "We were at a party," Ian was explaining, hardly aware of what he was saying, "and I wasn't with her, I had my own date, but a friend found me and said that something was wrong with her, I think someone put something in her drink..." His voice trailed off as shame settled over him. He should have been with her the whole time. He should have known something like this would happen...

"She'll be fine," the plump old mediwitch assured him. She had cast a quick diagnostic charm, and Ian saw the drug or the potion working its way through her bloodstream, lighting up over her veins like a Christmas tree. The mediwitch flicked her wand and the charm dissipated.

Mari lay trembling, her eyes squeezed shut. Ian Summoned one of the guest chairs from the side of the room and sat. He had no intention of going anywhere else that night.

The mediwitch retrieved a potion from her stores and eyed him when she returned. "Are you family?" she asked him.

Ian didn't see how she thought they could be, as they looked nothing alike. He thought about lying so she would let him stay, but he had never been a good liar. "No," he said, "but I'm staying here, anyway. Uh, I mean, if that's okay." He looked at her nervously.

"Here, dear." She offered Mari the flask and helped her drink it. "That's fine, Mr. Hecox, but be aware that the school rules still apply should you choose to return to Gryffindor Tower later. I won't be able to vouch for you if you get caught."

He nodded, but he didn't want to go back to the dormitories. He wasn't sure he could keep his temper when he saw Anthony – Mari had _told _him she didn't want to go out that night, and Anthony had still insisted she go. His friend had not known this would happen, though, and didn't deserve it if Ian started shouting at him. No, it was best if he remained there that night. He loosened his tie and settled more comfortably into the chair.

The mediwitch moved away, and Mari blinked dazedly at him. He just looked at her, having thought she was already asleep. "You don't have to stay here tonight," she told him sleepily. "Aren't you tired?"

_Yes, _he thought, but it didn't matter. "It's okay," he said. "I don't mind staying."

The girl smiled, but Ian thought it looked pained and tired. "Aww. You're so nice, Ian." She yawned and closed her eyes. "I guess I won't get scared now. It was scary when I was here the last time, you know, that Fatigue Hex those Slytherins got me with. I closed the curtains around my bed, but it was still so scary." She blinked her eyes open and smiled once more. "I think I'll sleep better, though, with you here."

Ian swallowed. He had no idea what to say.

Mari looked at him serenely. He could see the extreme exhaustion on her face. "I'm glad I found you moping by that lake all those years ago. You're probably my best friend."

He forced a smile as his throat tightened again. It was suddenly difficult to speak. "I'm glad, too," he said softly. "You should sleep."

"If you say so," she mumbled. Her eyes were closed by that point, and she didn't speak again that night.

Ian almost did not hear footsteps approach. Melanie very nearly scared him when she pulled up a chair beside Mari's bed. "Is she okay?" she asked. She still looked a bit troubled, and she was slightly out of breath, but her brown eyes shone with concern for her dormmate.

He shrugged. He felt worn and drained, and it had nothing to do with the fatigue he had already felt that night. "She'll be fine. The nurse gave her something to help her sleep it off." He glanced at her. "Did you tell Anthony?"

"I couldn't find him," she said, a frustrated edge to her voice. "But I found Joshua. He said he's gonna let Anthony know, and he might drop by tonight." She shook her head, her wavy hair rustling. "I can't believe it. What the heck is wrong with people..." Ian didn't have an answer for her. He liked to believe in the goodness of others, but he had seen just enough life to know it wasn't always true. It was a while before Melanie spoke again. "How was your date?" she asked, and he didn't miss the tightness in her voice.

He tried to smile. "Unbelievably annoying," he said honestly. As Melanie giggled, Ian continued, "No, really, you have no idea. She wouldn't leave me alone, she insisted on holding my arm, and she dragged me around to all her friends. And they all asked really awkward and invasive questions I didn't really want to answer." He looked at her quickly, suddenly afraid he had offended her; Melanie couldn't even get him to hold her hand, so it was no wonder he hated Delilah clutching his arm, but he had still allowed it out of politeness.

But Melanie was laughing into her hands at that point, very nearly beside herself. Despite everything, Ian had to smile too. "Oh my gosh," she said at last, wiping her eyes, "I'm so sorry." The apology was ruined when she giggled some more.

"Thanks," Ian said wryly.

Melanie grinned at him. "Well, at least now she'll stop bothering you."

He had to admit that Delilah had probably gotten the message at last. "I hope," he agreed.

They sat in silence for a moment. Ian was beginning to feel a bit better, as the stress and fear from earlier that night began to ebb away. Part of him still desperately wanted to know who had put the drug in Mari's drink, but he knew it would be impossible to track down the culprit; there had been too many people at that party, all in various levels of intoxication. More likely than not, the poisoner would not even remember doing it.

And it was more important that Mari was all right.

"How did you get her to calm down?" Melanie asked him, nodding toward Mari's unconscious form.

Ian hesitated, then shrugged one shoulder. "I don't know," he admitted. "We've just known each other for a long time, so I guess I understand her better." He found himself smiling. "When we were younger, she used to introduce me as her brother. No one believed us, because we look nothing alike, but no one questioned us either, because we were around each other so much."

Melanie's smile was warm and genuine. "That's so sweet. She was lucky to have you as a sort-of brother."

_I was lucky to have her, especially back then, _Ian thought. He considered telling Melanie exactly what his home life was like, and that Mari had come to mean so much to him because she had essentially rescued him from his family's presence more times than he could count. But he couldn't find the words. _I don't want to worry her, _he thought, and firmly put aside the idea. He simply could not share something like that with another person.

He ended up only shrugging in response.

After a moment, Melanie yawned widely, her arms arcing in a stretch. "All right, I think I'm going to bed," she said. She sent him a quick glance. "You're not coming up to the Tower, are you?"

"No," he said.

Melanie nodded. "Yeah. Well, let me know if anything changes. She's my buddy too, you know. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow." She stood, swept down to kiss his cheek, and was laughing when she moved toward the door. "Night!" she said, and he could hear her laughter as she walked down the corridor.

Ian was frozen in the chair. He tugged uncomfortably at his collar, suddenly too warm, and until he fell asleep at last, he found it difficult to concentrate on much else.

* * *

A/N: Awww.

Oh look, Ian can't control his magic sometimes. I'm sure that won't be a problem later.

I'm so relieved when I get to write this version of Ian after being stuck with Overthrown Ian for a while lol. This version is such a sweetheart while the Overthrown Ian is an asshole xD It provides a nice break, at least for me haha.

Next time: Mari narrates, she wakes up and talks to her guys. Should include another Marhinki scene :D yay.

Thanks for reading guys :D


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